


A Lesson On How The World Moves When The Time Stops

by cassyeopeia



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Falling In Love, Fluff, Healing, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Mentions of Toxic Relationships, Multi, Mutual Pining, Past Relationship(s), Polyamory, Running Away, Slice of Life, Summer Romance, They're cute, Yeosang is trying to third wheel but they won't let him, a lot of it, self help
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-09-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:28:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 41,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26321185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cassyeopeia/pseuds/cassyeopeia
Summary: “It was the kind of weather where heat would sew burns into skin under sunlight, but where autumn was fragrant in the shadows. The air was cold and crisp, dashed with the smell of harvest, and a light of an impossible brightness poured onto the muscle lines of his arms and calves like the sun wanted to immortalise him as young and flourishing.He was at nature’s service, and he made music out of things that were not made to sound. He walked his fingers through the strands of grass like he played the strings of a harp, and he made every rustle into a voice. He loved things untouched by human hand, and turned every crumb of nature’s gift into its own piece of life.“
Relationships: Choi San/Jung Wooyoung, Choi San/Jung Wooyoung/Kang Yeosang, Choi San/Kang Yeosang, Jung Wooyoung/Kang Yeosang
Comments: 43
Kudos: 167





	1. The Alchemy Of Self Healing

**Author's Note:**

> Hii ♥ I'm back with something that's been in the drafts for longer than it should have. After the last monstrous fic I posted, it feels strange to write anything less than 50k.  
> Woosansang have been living in my mind rent free throughout summer. And this might have resulted into something good.  
> Enjoy ♥

The rays of the setting sun flowed through the treetops of the apple orchard from down the hill. Little houses were scattered farther than the eye could hold— bright specks in the verdant sea. There was no murmur of a vehicle intending to pass by, even from miles away.

“What time is it?” Wooyoung asked, irritatingly tapping his heel against the concrete. He leaned his head back against the glass, staring directly into the sunset with tired eyes. His fists were clenched inside his pockets.

“Phone’s dead.” San yawned. He buried his face into his hands, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his palms.

“Did I not tell you to charge it?”

“If you’re so desperate, then turn yours on!”

“I’m not turning my phone on! I told you why!”

“So then what do we do?”

San sighed, dropping his head forward. So low that he seemed to have found the core of the earth at the price of his spine breaking. The muscles of his neck felt sore from the uncomfortable position he fell asleep in.

They were at a bus station in a village they did not know the name of. Perhaps the bus driver yelled the name of the stop, but one was asleep and the other was not too far off. When he looked out the window, Wooyoung dragged San off the bus because he liked the view. And at that time, he considered nothing else. Neither could estimate the distance between the city and the place they were in as they did not know how long the bus ride was. They found themselves there because of a decision made on impulse.

A decision which then made them feel like they ruled the world. Like they were in control of everything, and things were going to braid together smoothly like a character in a coming of age novel.

But time gave no indication of that at the moment. They were tired, mildly carsick, and hungry. They still had one takeout meal left which they kept for when starvation would threaten them with death.

Wooyoung lived for adrenaline inducing situations, decisions made on a whim which he called ‘adventures’. But he was also a poor planner. In fact, he wasn’t a planner at all. He poured all of his dreams and ideas and urges into San’s arms and expected him to deal with it all. And San, because he loved him, swallowed his rage down and complied.

“I don’t know,” Wooyoung mumbled, nibbling on his lower lip while staring into the distance. “I don’t know what to do.”

“So then-” San broke off, noticing the first human figure since they arrived there walking in their direction on the other side of the road. It was someone not very tall, carrying an empty foraging basket on his back, and a bamboo hatchet in his hand. “Excuse me,” San said politely, but as the boy approached, he noticed it was someone their age. His sweatpants were tucked inside his rubber boots, and his hands were stained with soil. The boy scrutinised San, not appearing to be very friendly with someone who was clearly not from around the area. “Hi, sorry, do you happen to know what time it is?”

The boy crossed the street to the bus station, checking the timetable before checking his watch. “Almost nine. Afraid you missed the last one.”

Deep down, San already knew, but he thought the world loved him more than that. “Okay. Thank you.” He turned around, picked up his flannel shirt and bag, gesturing for Wooyoung to keep moving before he caught onto the pitiful eyes the boy directed at them.

Although he didn’t like it, Wooyoung followed him around like a puppy without commenting on his decision. When San was this determined there was no point in trying to make him reconsider.When he looked back, the boy was already gone and the street fell even quieter than before. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” San shrugged. “It’s not your fault.”

“Earlier you said it was.”

Ceasing his steps, San turned around to face him, awkwardly scratching his scalp in search for an explanation. “Yeah, but…You said you wanted this. You said you wanted to be away from it. It may not be the adventure you wanted, but let’s still try to make the best of it,” then he opened his arms to welcome Wooyoung in. “We got this.”

Wooyoung kissed his shoulder through his shirt, then leaned his cheek against it while rubbing his back. “Yeah.”

“Come on, cheer up.” San smiled, before wrapping his arm around his shoulders and resuming their walk.

On the hills behind the bus station were the corn fields rustling into the evening breeze as gently as swinging on a boat in a sleeping sea. The air was so clean and light that it almost tasted sweet, and they picked up the fragrant hue of a flower tree although there was none nearby.

They wandered aimlessly from one end of the village to the other, avoiding every pair of eyes in fear of getting picked on. The countryside wasn’t exactly the sort of place they would blend in with how their anger at life was as clear on their face as the sky after rain. The last thing they wanted was for the people to think they were there for trouble when all they did was to search for a place to hide from human eyes.

As the sun was tucking its last ray in, they stumbled upon a large, colourful sign which indicated that the land was part of a national park, and next to it was a red arrow pointing to a hiking trail. Without consulting with each other, they followed the directions and began their hike. They went up a flight of metal stairs, counting their steps just to busy their minds with something. When Wooyoung started falling behind, San reached his hand behind him, wiggling his fingers until Wooyoung grabbed it.

The call of the unknown rung louder at their hearts’ ears the more they climbed. It was like the more they advanced, the more they built new paths and new corners of the world for no one else to cross. Regardless of how much they climbed, it was not high enough.

San’s dark hair was traced in gold. His neck, the shape of his shoulder, and the soft hairs on his arm were outlined in a glowing auburn, as if he saved a bit of sun within him the more the sky darkened.

If Wooyoung had more vigour in him, he would have embraced him tightly and burst out with things that were sure to give him a headache. During the bus ride, after San fell asleep, Wooyoung shed a few tears only to keep the promise he made to his heart that he would listen to it when it cried. It was the first time in his life when he was in a foreign place with one other person, and he was surprised to see how stable the ground underneath him was. The unknown had tried too hard to scare him throughout his life, but right now he was filled with thrill that he was finally challenging it. He wanted to build a new path and run wildly towards unexplored corners.

“Over there,” San said, suddenly letting go of his hand and pointing towards who knew where. Wooyoung was staring at their sunlight dusted hands instead of paying attention, contemplating rebuilding himself from leaves and stone alone. So much that he bumped his nose against San’s backpack when awakened from his epiphany.

San pointed towards a wider gap between the trees, with a view to the mountain where the sun was setting into. They strayed from the path in favour of the landscape. Sitting down on the same rock with their legs hanging by the edge, they found each other’s hand again and exhaled tiredly. Above them, the sky was lilac, then as it enveloped the earth, it seamlessly blended into a soft marigold shade, and the ring of clouds that crowned the mountain were as pink as peonies.

“See? This ain’t so bad.” San murmured, kissing the top of Wooyoung’s head. He reached for his bag and took the meal box out, along with the last two soda cans he had on him. They only had one set of chopsticks left too, so he fed Wooyoung first before taking a bite himself. “Isn’t this what you wanted?”

“I don’t know what I wanted,” he said in a dreamlike tone, looking towards the village. There was only a group of kids riding their bikes, and two streets away, an elderly couple was taking a stroll through the fields. “But I’m not giving this view up for anything. My heart’s racing.”

“I agree. It’s so nice here.”

“But you know you could have asked that guy for directions, right?”

San shrugged, tearing the rolled omelet in two even parts and feeding the first one to Wooyoung. “I’m glad I didn’t. Maybe we wouldn’t have ended up here.”

“But where are we supposed to sleep?”

At first, San looked around, then he spread his arms with a careless grin on his lips. “Look at all this space you have here.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“I am.”

“But there’s bugs here. And snakes.”

“Well if a snake didn’t bite my ass so far, I don’t think it will.”

Wooyoung rolled his eyes, taking a sip from his drink. Yawning, he shuffled closer to San, leaning his head against his thigh, already drifting away into unconsciousness with his first sigh. “This is a bad idea,” he mumbled, his cheek getting squished when his head was about roll off. To prevent that from happening, San brought his legs together, supporting the back of his head.

San spilled the rest of his drink down the rock, watching it sizzle its way down. He could only wonder how hot it must have been in direct sunlight. “No, it’s not. This is great.” He took his flannel shirt, crumpled up into a ball and used it as a pillow.

“Do you have your book with you?” Wooyoung asked.

“Yeah. You want me to read you?”

Wooyoung hummed affirmatively, closing his eyes. He appreciated how San was trying to reach for his bag without moving his legs too much. During those five seconds while San searched for the book, he might have fallen asleep again. His ears remained open as San cleared his throat and began reading in such a gentle tone that his pacing might have been a song at some point in time: “ _What makes music beautiful is the distance between one note and another. What makes speech eloquent is the appropriate pause between words. From time to time we should take a breath and notice the silence between sounds_.”

Hearing the first line, Wooyoung opened his eyes as if awakened from a dream. He’s never had the ability to guess what San was about to read before. It took that first line alone for Wooyoung to realise that San was one of those beautiful people. He was careful with the words he spoke as if they were his own form of art.

There was something about people— or just San talking to him in a soft tone, or reading him things that sent him into such a sweet state of drowsiness as quickly as on a slope of clouds, that no alarm and no artificial city sound would have the power to wake him.

☼

Somehow the sky was still dark when the murmur of an old engine pierced through their dreams and forced their eyes to crack open. Wooyoung’s first and biggest mistake was to try to stand up suddenly, disregarding how he hasn’t moved at all throughout his sleep and now his neck hurt worse than if someone snapped it. Not that he knew what it was like to have his neck snapped. He massaged it until his skin started burning, filling his mind with rainbows and sheep and clouds while doing head rolls.

Compared to him, San looked like he was doing much better. He stood up and stretched his neck and arms as smoothly as if he slept on a fluffy mattress. Memory foam and all.

“What is that?” Wooyoung asked, pointing vaguely in the distance towards where the sound was coming from.

“That’s a tractor.”

“And why is it on?”

“… _Why is it on_ …” San repeated the question as if he was trying to determine its absurd factor. “Because people gotta start fieldwork early. Ain’t nobody got the time to wake up at 11AM like _some people_.”

“It’s the middle of the night?”

“No it’s not, it’s something-something-AM. It’s almost sunrise.”

Wooyoung complained with a series of muffled groans, his face sunk into his jacket. He drank almost all the water he had with him, sprinkling what was left on his face to wake up properly, then opened a bag of snacks for them to have as a poor excuse for breakfast while waiting for the sunrise.

“I wanna go there,” Wooyoung said, pointing towards the mountain the sun was rising behind. “That mountain.”

“Then there’s gonna be another mountain the sun hides behind.”

“Then I want to see that one too.”

“Then there’s gonna be another one.”

“Then we’ll go see that one too.”

“You’re not trying to catch the sun, baby, are you?”

“Nah…Just to chase it.”

San folded the snack bag and tossed it in the old shopping bag, picking his own water bottle. “You’re becoming more sentimental out here. I should get you out of the house more often.”

“…Not that we have anywhere else to go now.”

As San wanted to reach his hand to touch his shoulder to comfort him, a rustling sound came from towards the hiking path in a rhythmical pattern, like steps. They turned around to greet whoever was insane enough to go hiking at that hour, only to find the same boy from yesterday. San lifted his hand and waved at him. “Hi again.”

This time the boy was wearing hiking boots and a dark T-shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his shoulders. He wore his hair tied in a little ponytail, and had a smaller foraging basket on his back this time, and a gardening trowel with a pointy tip in his hand. “Oh, you’re still here.” Quick to follow him was a lamb skipping its way up to him.

“Ugh, yeah,” Wooyoung laughed awkwardly, unable to take his eyes off the lamb and the way it curled around the boy’s leg like he was its entire world. He might have gotten his heart shattered a little.

Right when he looked back up at the boy with the intention of asking him the right questions for the situation they were in, the boy waved his hand at them, saying “Well you two have fun.”

And he was off.

But the lamb, however. The lamb watched them curiously. It was a tiny little thing with a curl on top of its head sticking up like a grapevine. It took one timid step towards them, then another one. “Peony, this way please.” Its owner said, and the lamb quickly followed.

The two watched them go with their mouths agape, sharing a stunned glance, then looking back at the boy climbing rocks without breaking the sweat, then turning around to take the lamb into his arms when it was too high.

“Did I see that correctly?” San asked when the boy was out of their visual field. “He had a lamb with him…”

“And he called it Peony.”

“…That’s so cute.”

“…And he was cute too.”

“…Really cute.”

They flicked their eyes over to each other, accepting the situation with a calm nod, then as if drew back by a magnetic force, they looked back to where the boy had gone.

“I must know his name.” Wooyoung said.

San slapped his forehead, standing up to wrap his shirt around his waist. “I knew it.”

“Don’t act like you don’t want to. I know you too well.”

“I do, I just don’t wanna scare him. He didn’t look like he was up for a chat.”

“Worry not, my love, I plan to woo him with my-” he stopped abruptly, his mouth hanging open, staring into the void. Friendly reminder that he was a poor planner. Sometimes even when it came to big words.

San nodded. “…Wooing skills.”

“…Correct.”

“Or you could just stop talking for the rest of your life.”

“You dare lecture me about talking, you foolish introvert.”

Brushing his comment off, San turned around and left, counting the seconds until Wooyoung—a foolish extrovert, would follow him running. San wasn’t just a supportive and reliable partner. He was also a compass, a planner with an incorporated reminder, an alarm, and also someone who sent random notifications when he was not receiving enough attention. Everything you’d want in a phone.

This wasn’t only a fact, but it was also a joke Wooyoung once made, and San (again, because he loved him) couldn’t even laugh because it was true. He remembered all of Wooyoung’s appointments and had a seventh sense for when he didn’t take his pills back in the day.

He still held the book in his hand as they descended the mountain because he could never be too prepared with how spontaneous Wooyoung became. He took his phone to check on his messages, once again forgetting that he shut it down. When Wooyoung lifted his head up from his phone, he was brought back to the present, and opened his eyes so wide and so childishly innocent as if he discovered the world again and again. That is what they dedicated their escapade to. The unfound land of their psyche not daring enough to come forward.

But that wasn’t going to happen if their bodies were living the present and their minds lingered in a place that was not theirs anymore. And when they held hands they could tell. San could tell when he had to slightly drag Wooyoung after him, and Wooyoung knew by how San suddenly slowed his steps and they bumped into each other. Their minds were wavering, and they each knew where the other’s went.

They walked around the national park, but not too far from the hiking trail for obvious reasons. While there was still shadow and morning breeze they sat at the foot of a magnolia tree and talked about themselves in relation to each other, and even that went for an endless amount of time. Then San continued reading the book for Wooyoung, encouraging to comment on the paragraphs and engage with his critical side. All part of their journey into psychological enlightenment.

Wooyoung took the book from San when he was done with the paragraph, placing the bookmark in and closing the book, but not yet standing up. “We should probably get some food.”

“Yeah.” San nodded, sighing as a mean to prepare himself for the strenuous effort that was standing up once again. He opened his mouth to say something again, but ended up staring in the distance somewhere over Wooyoung’s shoulder slightly surprised.

When Wooyoung turned around, he almost puffed out a laugh when he saw the same little lamb staring at him like it knew all his secrets. “You need something, tiny?”

The lamb approached him fearlessly this time, and as it did, they noticed all the small, pink flowers through its fleece, and the stick of grass it was slowly chewing on. Wooyoung gently scratched its chin, getting all giddy when the little one closed its eyes.

“Had a feeling I was gonna run into you again,” the boy said, greeting them again with a timid hand wave. This time his foraging basket was almost filled with wild vegetables and weeds. The lamb skipped over to his side, leaving a tender hole in Wooyoung’s heart. “You’re not lost, are you?”

“No, we’re just chilling.”

“Yeah, we woke up for the sunrise and now we were go buy food.”

“Oh,” was all the boy said at first, then he checked his watch, adjusting the basket’s strap on his shoulder just to keep his hands busy. “You wanna eat together then? Was about to make breakfast when I get back. Didn’t eat either.”

The two shared a surprised glance. The kind that needed more than half a second cool-down. “For real?” San asked.

The boy shrugged. “Sure. I can tell you’re not feeling too good. Sleeping in the mountains isn’t the best thing.”

With just that as a conclusion, he pointed the trowel towards the road they were going to take home, then threw the tool back in the basket before picking the lamb in his arms again when it failed to follow him.

Now that there was someone to guide them around, strangely the world didn’t seem so big. It was like they finished the outline of a puzzle and were just now figuring out the inside, but all the other pieces were the same colour.

“Well, since you’re coming to my house,” the boy trailed off, showing them a half smile “Name’s Yeosang. Yours?”

“Wooyoung. It’s nice to meet you, finally.”

“I’m San. You know, the reason why we moved from there it’s ‘cause we didn’t wanna scare you.”

Yeosang chuckled, letting the lamb walk around freely after they crossed the street. “I actually didn’t sleep very well because of you guys.”

“What, you thought we were trouble?”

“No. I just felt bad because I didn’t do more yesterday. I was so tired and looking forward to getting home that I didn’t think about helping you out.”

The words reached them so suddenly they they somehow bumped into each other instead of walking ahead. “Well that’s awfully sweet of you.” Wooyoung said, looking at how the tips of Yeosang’s hair bounced like a duck’s tail.

“Ah, well,” smiling timidly, he scratched the back of his neck. The nail of his ring finger was almost sliced in half, and his knuckles didn’t look too smooth either. “This is Peony, by the way. She’s a baby and has a problem with following everyone around.”

“Oh, so she’s not yours?”

“She is, but she’s curious of other people and she gets into trouble easily.” He looked down at the lamb who was at quite the distance behind them. “This way, miss.”

The road they took was a short cul-de-sac with only a large garden enclosed by cherry and apple trees, and a small greenhouse in the far end. Beside it were two houses, one much larger than the other, connected by a trellis of pink climbing roses. Above half the courtyard was a canopy of grapevines well tended to, and underneath its shade was a dining table and two benches.

Yeosang saw the two hesitant to enter, their eyes searching the courtyard for another person to ask permission from. “It’s just me here, don’t worry.”

“You live alone, really?”

“Uh-um,” he set down his foraging basket, then took his hiking boots off, dropping down on the bench with a heavy sigh. “I’ll get started in a moment. Just let me catch my breath.” But that moment lasted shorter than it should have. He took one breath, then jumped back up, toeing his slippers as he made his way to the house. Seconds later, he returned saying, “Okay so I left you towels and stuff in the bathroom. If you wanna use it, feel free. It’s the door next to the…fake plant thing.”

“Wait,” San said quickly before he would disappear again. “Is it okay to get comfortable like this?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean,” he paused, searching for a way to pose the question vaguely enough not to sound imposing. “Is this alright with you?”

Yeosang leaned his arm against the doorway, folding his arms over his chest. “Where do you go from here? Are you on a trip or something?”

“…No. Nothing like that. We don’t really have a plan.”

“If you don’t, then get comfortable until you figure it out.”

San dropped down into his seat more confused than before. He was in his contemplative state, so Wooyoung let him be. “…What do you think?” San asked, seemingly himself, staring at a butterfly circling the grapevines.

“I’m still thinking if this is real or not.” Wooyoung’s lip twitched with all the words stumbling down his tongue. So many that he couldn’t yet say. “How ‘bout you?”

“I think…The world sometimes turns things around in a way that we don’t expect, but in a way they should be. So maybe good things happening shouldn’t be such a foreign thing.”San reminded him, running a gentle hand up and down his thigh. “Go get comfortable. It’s gonna be okay.”

He maintained his smile bright and confident until Wooyoung left. After he was left alone, his smile faded with a tone of relief as he searched for his phone and charger in his bag. Before entering the house he took his shoes off as he looked to his left and right for where the sounds might come from. He walked to the door where he heard sounds of water boiling and vegetables being chopped, knocking at the door as timidly as a child. “I’m sorry, I was wondering if it’s okay if I charged my phone real quick?”

“Sure, go for it,” Yeosang replied, smiling while tucking his hair behind his ear. Something he probably shouldn’t have done if he wanted San to remain coherent and sane.

But he was quick to recoil after he closed the door and shook his mind free of the image. He crouched down right next to the kitchen door, waiting for his phone to turn back on, although no nerve in him wanted it to happen. The day before while they were running to the station, he accidentally dropped it, so he hoped for the life of him that it was broken. It wasn’t a very new model anyway, and it took quite the damage in the past two years he’s had it.

He expected it to be flooded with missed phone calls and desperate messages, swallowing dryly while looking at the signal icon at the top of the screen. He sat there for seconds, staring into space. The only message he received was from his sister asking ‘did u eat’ to which he quickly replied with a just as dry ‘about to’.

The same moment he stood up, Wooyoung walked out of the bathroom with a new white, crumpled shirt on tucked within his sweatpants, his face slightly dewy, and smelling of his own cologne. “You took a fucking shower?”

“Yeah?” Wooyoung shrugged. “You told me to get comfortable.”

“…You’re unbelievable.”

Hugging his backpack to his chest, he sat down next to San, with his back against the wall. “Nothing?” He took San’s phone to check for himself, but saw the notification centre empty. They’ve been through that too many times in the past days to be surprised. “Go freshen up too. It’ll help you.” Wooyoung suggested, kissing his temple.

The temptation to check his phone arose in his mind like a memory refusing to stay forgotten, but as he stood up to put his bag away, Peony came in and started sniffing and nibbling on the shoulder strap adjuster.

Yeosang opened the kitchen door with his foot, having his hands full with steaming soup bowls. “I’m sorry, can you hold her so she won’t-” he tried, but Peony joyfully leapt her way to him, walking in infinity shapes around his legs. “…Get in the way.”

“Actually,” Wooyoung changed his mind, taking the tray instead. He had no experience holding any other animals except dogs.

Before properly setting the table, Yeosang took Peony in the back yard where her rabbit friends were. “I forgot to ask you guys how old you are.”

“Twenty-two, both of us. You?”

“Me too. Don’t know why I thought you’d be older.”

“And I thought you’d be younger. You have the cheeks of a twelve-year-old.”

“I do? I was told I had to eat more.”

“Um,” Wooyoung scanned him from head to toe. “Yeah, you do.”

Yeosang sat down at the table for approximately five seconds before remembering he didn’t bring napkins. Then he stood up a second time feeling slightly uncomfortable that the table was too empty. Unsure what they were missing, he went and made an entire jug of lemonade. “Are you always like this?” Wooyoung asked, following the steam trail of the tofu soup. Beside it there were also bigger bowls of scrambled egg noodles with garlic and spring onion, and they were neatly plated too.

“Like what?”

“You just don’t sit still.”

“Sorry,” Yeosang fumbled around, wiping his hands against his trousers. “I’ll sit down now.”

“No, I’m just asking. Are you always…doing things? Running around?”

“Oh, yeah. There’s always something to do.”

Wooyoung hummed, nodding. He didn’t hear the sound of the shower anymore. “Guess so. You’ve a big place here.”

“Yeah. The patch of land in the back wasn’t even ours until three years ago. Now there’s more to tend to.”

“Ours?”

Yeosang nodded. “My grandparents’.”

“…And now it’s just you.”

“Yeah.”

Slating his eyes, Wooyoung pressed his lips into a thin line, then looked back at him. “I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s okay. Things are better now.”

“How long have you been alone for?”

“Two years or so.”

Their conversation was momentarily interrupted by San joining them. He also changed into looser clothes fit for the weather, and he also smelled of Wooyoung’s cologne. He whispered a quick apology and sat next to Wooyoung.

“Doesn’t it get lonely here?” Wooyoung asked with the best intention possible, but as he was desperate for answers for his ongoing quest to self discovery, he was unsure when he would come across as invasive. It was San’s duty to hold him back.

“There’s not much time to feel lonely,” Yeosang served their meals and filled their glasses first. “I’m hardly ever home. Even when you think you’ve done everything…you haven’t.”

Yeosang spoke with a level of pride that they haven’t heard anyone use before. There was no remorse and no shame in the way he detailed his morning routines, feeding the ducks and the rabbits, going out in the field, plus the amount of times he came down with a heat exhaustion so severe that he thought he was never going to recover from. In reality there was nothing interesting about harvesting wheat and going to the mill to turn it into flour, but the two found themselves entranced by the way he worded everything to make it sound like an otherworldly experience. They’ve never smiled constantly throughout an entire meal, nor have they ever eaten without paying attention to their plate and not remembering where the food had gone. Their stomachs were finally full and content and they remembered it tasted good.

They were both just ashamed to admit that there was a point where they stopped paying attention to everything else that moved around them. Yeosang leaned back comfortably, holding his bowl against his knee as he ate his last bites. While he listened to San and Wooyoung bicker, he smiled along although he didn’t understand much. While they were at it, Yeosang was about to point out how interesting their friendship was, until he noticed a series of minute gestures that would denote something. Slight touches and glances with deep undertones. They were an interesting pair to observe. “So what about you guys? What’s your story?” He asked after they finished eating.

And it was a question well planned, as both of them doubted they could remember the events in perfect chronology with their stomachs empty.

“Well,” San sketched a smile, twisting his glass left and right, intrigued by how the sun made the ice cube sparkle. “We may or may not have…” he shifted his gaze over to Wooyoung.

“…Ran away?”

Yeosang’s eyebrows flicked up, changing his position so that his elbows rested against the table. “How long ago?”

At that, they both laughed. Wooyoung nudged San to begin the story, then San nudged him back, complaining that it was too much to say. In the end, Wooyoung gave in. “So I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’re a thing.”

“Yeah, I’ve noticed.” Yeosang looked them both in the eyes with such solemnity that it was almost as if he promised to keep their secret. His eyes were riveting and so worthy of analysing.

“And you know that some people have radical opinions about it. Sadly.”

“Are this people…family?”

“Yep.”

“…But did they tell you to leave because they found out, or…Actually, no. Sorry. I shouldn’t ask things.”

“You can ask, I don’t care. But to answer this…not really. It’s a long story. And we’re not saying this because we don’t feel like sharing, but because too many things happened that led up to this.”

“It’s been going on since the beginning of the year.” San added, filling his glass halfway through. “And two days ago, Wooyoung’s had enough and messaged me ‘Let’s just go and not come back’.”

“But this guy,” he pointed towards San “He knows me so well that he didn’t even call to check if I was okay. He literally packed things for a trip and met me in town.”

“I thought he had a plan for once in his life, but we ended up walking around streets we’ve never seen before and we crashed at this old motel where our room smelled like those moth ball packets. And then yesterday he randomly goes ‘Let’s take the first bus and wherever it takes us, it takes us. I’m done’.”

Yeosang nodded, smiling only because the others did, unsure how to respond to that. He was out of practise, not having to deal with anyone else’s problems but his. “You don’t have to tell me what happened, so don’t worry. If it made you reach the decision of never going back, it means it was pretty bad…But if the context was better, I’d say this is pretty cool.”

“It was. There’s something fulfilling in the thrill of not knowing what you’ll do next.”

“But is it okay to do this, though? There’s gotta be someone searching for you.”

Wooyoung was swirling his chopsticks around the bottom of the bowl, poking around the last piece of green onion. “There isn’t.”

“Go check your phone.” San said in the gentlest tone.

“I don’t want to.”

“Wooyoung.”

“I don’t want to!”

“You want them to report us as missing? If anyone messaged you, then tell them you’re alive and get it over with.”

After a series of groans and poor excuses, Wooyoung complied. It was the quickest he’s ever done so.

“Should I give you some time alone? I don’t mind.”

“It’s okay. No secrets here. You’ll probably know everything by the end of the day.”

Yeosang took in his words carefully, interpreting them although they were quite evident. He listened to their story as if it was his duty to remember it, but his attention was directed to the genuineness in their eyes, their ecstatic gestures while they laid out the events of the first night, but mostly how their eyes slanted when they were urged to remember. Their eyes were the most tired. “So what do you want for dinner, then?”

Their eyes darted upwards like two meerkat pups at the slightest sound. “Dinner?”

“There’s gonna be a dinner?”

Taken aback by the sudden shift in atmosphere, Yeosang held his hand against his mouth and nose as he puffed out a laugh. His speaking voice was low and solemn, sometimes as grey as stone when he spoke matter-of-factly, contrasting his high and childlike laugh. “Well you said the end of the day. I guess that implies a dinner.”

Wooyoung looked at his phone’s screen lighting up with notifications from his socials. Things other people commented or posted, tagging him in who knew what, and a reminder of some stranger’s birthday. Remorsefully, he scrolled through them for any messages from his family, but he was yet to find one. “Do you usually let people in your house like this?” To maintain himself fully immersed in Yeosang’s presence, he sled his phone over to San’s side of the table to see for himself.

“I don’t think too much about it. If I was stranded or lost, I would want someone to do this for me.”

“You know we could rob you, right?”

“What are you gonna steal? My rubber boots? My corn flour? Go ahead.”

“I’m just saying. This is reckless. The police would be onto us. We could be criminals.”

“And I’m just saying. I know how to use a putty knife in more ways than one. I may or may not own a crossbow and you won’t ever know where it is. No one knows the strings around the house better than I do.”

“Remind me not to ever get on your bad side.” San lifted his hands in a placatory gesture, drawing another giggle out of Yeosang.

“Glad we settled this,” he stood up to start clearing the table, but the others were quick to help him out, bickering over who should carry more. The only thing Yeosang was left to carry was the empty tray. “Also, guys, I have some things to do today so I might not be with you until lunch.”

“Can we help you with something?”

“Not really. It’s not that much to do. Just tell me where to find you in case you go out. Or if you wanna stay here and rest, you can.”

“…You’re an angel, but you really shouldn’t let strangers in your house, especially when you’re not there. Do I really have to teach you about stranger danger?”

After the first three words, Yeosang’s attention wavered to a land far away beyond the mountains “Well, no, but,” and before the blush on his cheeks would betray him, he turned around. To do things. Anything. “Just wanted to be nice.”

But there was not enough time in the world to for them to explain why it was harmful to lay his heart out like that in front of strangers. But when it came to the rules of the soul, San and Wooyoung weren’t ones to preach either. They were there because of a series of events they handled poorly out of blind trust.

“I can’t believe we have to look after him now,” San said, rolling a wheat straw in between his teeth and shoving his hands in his pockets.

They watched Yeosang as he went to his neighbour’s house, not commencing their walk until he was out of their sight. As they looked at his dark hair swinging in the wind, at how the earth shifted when he laid his foot against it, they saw something in him that they knew they lacked— an offshore feeling. He was like pigment against white and brushstrokes painting a clear dream. Something that was based on study and practice, but was a symbol of beauty and expression.

“I know,” Wooyoung tightened his grip around the book to remind himself he was still holding it “I’m glad it’s us.”

“Me too. It could have been anyone.”

“Imagine if it was…I feel weird, Sani.”

“Me too.”

“Weird how?”

“A bit out of place. Like I want to pull myself together, but something in the back of my head is telling me that it’s not the right time yet.”

“Yeah,” Wooyoung closed his eyes, taking in the onrush of sensations. The sun caressing his back. The wind redrawing his every line and crease. The surfeit of smells— wet soil, ripe apples, and magnolias. “I agree.” And San’s hand within his.

☼

“And then I found his socials and started scrolling through his Instagram like a creep, crying to my roommate about how cute Wooyoung was. But it was so hard to talk to him because he always had like three people around him. You never caught him alone. It was ridiculous. When he was with those people he wouldn’t look anywhere else, so I couldn’t even say hi to him. But then sometime later we went to the same party and we finally talked.”

“And you kicked it off right away?”

“Nah,” Wooyoung said, giggling with his lip against the rim of the glass before taking a sip. “At first I started talking to him because I knew he was into me and I didn’t wanna be rude.”

“But he was too popular to reply to me like a decent human, so I gave it up quickly after.”

“You know I suck at replying!”

“I wanted to talk to you, and I would get a reply once at two days when I would reply to you as fast as I could! So of course I lost hope.”

“I’m guessing Wooyoung was the one who made the first step next?” Yeosang asked.

“Yeah, kind of.” Wooyoung confirmed “A few weeks later we’ve met on campus randomly, and I was having a shit time so I asked him if he wants to go for a walk. So we did. And I ranted. We sat by a river and I ranted about my whole life and how unhappy I was and I almost cried. But this bitch,” he pointed at San “He didn’t laugh at me. He looked into my eyes while I was so close to bawling and gave me actually good advice, although— I realise this now, my problems weren’t even that bad. He said things to me that no one else did. The amount of times I’ve heard people say ‘breathe’ and ‘go with the flow’ and ‘push through it because it’s gonna be okay’. I was tired. But San had his own way with words, like he was explaining me the process and philosophy behind ‘going with the flow’. I remember I slept well that night. And after we separated we didn’t talk for a few days. The next time I didn’t feel okay I messaged him again. We’ve made a habit out of going for walks at night. But I was annoyed ‘cause I was the only one with problems. When I asked him if there was anything he wanted to talk about, he’d say no.”

“I get that. You wanted to return the favour.”

“Yeah, I did, but he wouldn’t let me. We kept going on like this for a couple of weeks. I sat next to him during lectures and asked him to have lunch together when our schedules matched. And then I asked him if he wanted to be my boyfriend.”

“No you didn’t, don’t lie to him.”

“He didn’t?”

“He didn’t ask me if I wanna. He said ‘You’re my boyfriend now, right?’. Like, what the fuck do you say to that?”

“But I thought you wanted to be with him.” Yeosang did his best to understand the hearts of _city folk_. But the only thing he understood so far was that they made basic things unnecessarily complicated.

“Yeah, I did, but the flame died a bit. Just a bit. But I said yes anyway. And now here we are.”

They both looked at Yeosang trying to re-process the story. When he asked them how they’ve met, he didn’t expect the first half of a novel. Now that he’s spent an entire day with the two, he was almost sure they were safe to have around. That noon he found them strolling through the magnolia grove holding hands and laughing in each other’s shoulder and placing fallen flowers in each other’s hair. He didn’t want to interrupt him so he waited for them until they finished their walk.

It was mostly San and Wooyoung who shared stories during lunch and in the long hours that followed. Until Yeosang let them play with the rabbits and feed Peony with a baby bottle, when they almost cried.

“Sounds like the world fated you to meet at the right time. I’m glad you’ve met.” Yeosang said, picking up a rose petal from the corner of the table, then dropped it down with the rest. He wore a smile that the others thought was too genuine for the words he said. He smiled as if he was the one who lived that story, when in reality he smiled because of how genuine it felt to experience the feeling of falling in love through the prism of someone else.

“I think it was more of a moment when the world had enough of my whining and said ‘Let’s just give him a boyfriend so he’d shut the fuck up.” San said after a quiet moment in which Yeosang looked at the rose petals pooling at his empty feet, whereas he and Wooyoung looked at him as to be able to repaint him from memory if one day he was not going to be there. “How about you, though? Ever been with someone?”

Yeosang shook his head slowly, lost in thought for a short moment with his eyes glued to the rose vines. “No. Never. I’ve never met anyone on the same, um— what do you call it…”

“Wavelength?”

“Yeah. Same wavelength as me. And this is important for me. Sorry if it sounds selfish.”

“And how would someone be on the same wavelength as you?” San was the one who asked, and Yeosang’s first reaction was to look at Wooyoung, who smiled knowingly. Yeosang understood the implications of the question, but what he didn’t get was why would that be their business since they were a couple.

“W-Well…You _city folk_ are too fast and impatient for me.”

“Fast?”

“…Yeah.” His mouth remained open, his eyes wondering and building tension. “I’ve been to the city before, and everyone’s so rushed. Everyone’s running here and there. Everyone’s desperate to make money as much and as fast as possible. We’re taught to feel ashamed when we don’t have enough years of education or when we don’t have a job. People value jobs more than they value themselves. And I- I’m not made for that kind of life. People like this scare me.” He chuckled nervously. “I don’t want someone like this. I’m too weak.”

“Hey, don’t say that.”

“You’re not weak. What you said is completely valid.”

“Yeah, it’s reassuring to know that others think like this too.”

The sudden rush of comforting words left him speechless for the first moment as his chest growing with a new feeling that his heart deemed familiar and yet was curious of. A feeling that flew above him just out of sight reach.

“Is that why you’re here now? Because the city life was too much?” Wooyoung asked in a slower manner than he usually spoke in. He also had that rush in his speech and mannerisms that Yeosang spoke of earlier. But what Yeosang also observed was that Wooyoung had the tendency to take a step back when he and San talked about matters of the heart and soul and their views about the world, as if he wanted a space of his own to remain objective.

“In a way. Just like you, a series of not-so-good things have brought me here.”

“You don’t make it sound like it was a bad decision.”

“Oh, no. I like it here. But,” he ran his fingers through his hair, holding it loosely in his fist like he wanted to tie it back “Maybe that’s a story for another day.”

“So there’s gonna be another day, huh?” Wooyoung asked in a tone that he probably shouldn’t have used with anyone, but his boyfriend.

“You tell me.” Yeosang stood up and started clearing the table. He collected the dishes to his side before the others would take them back. Even after lunch they fought over who should carry more. “I’ll go prepare your room after this.”

“Let us do the dishes, then. We’ve bothered you enough.” San offered, opening the door for Yeosang.

“No worries, you’re the guests, I won’t make you work.”

When Yeosang let his guard down for that one split second, Wooyoung snatched the tray from him, mumbling something about how he can’t eat someone else’s food for free like that, and Yeosang, being the pure soul he was, didn’t know how to fight back. He was the type of guy who would let people cut in line because he couldn’t stand confrontation.

“Hey, you don’t need to arrange anything. Any bed will do, really.”

“Yeah, but I have a hoarding problem, and I dump everything in the guest room. I can’t let you guys sleep in a place like that.”

“…I’m sure it can’t be that bad-”

“A huge hoarding problem.”

“…Well it can’t be that…bad.” San’s voice dropped to the ground as Yeosang opened the door. Baskets filled to the brim with clothes and old electric devices, about twenty sets of gardening tools and seed packets. Unfinished straw slippers and hats, and a pyramid of ziplock bags stuffed with nails of all sizes on the windowsill. On the bed there were also stranded drawers in conditions ranging from almost new to please-throw-it-away-now, fishing equipment and an ice box which clearly hasn’t been used in months. Rubber boots, tool kits, a stack of ceramic flower pots, a garden hose nicely arranged as a garland against the head of the bed, and rolls of wire mesh poking from underneath the bed. And many other boxes San didn’t want to know what contained. “…Oh, this is a lot.”

“I didn’t know there was so much stuff. I’m so embarrassed. I’m sorry.”

San patted his shoulder reassuringly, rolling his sleeves up and cracking his knuckles. “Okay, let’s do this.”

☼

The bed they slept in was so large that throughout the night they had to search for each other if they rolled too far. The mattress was soft and made out of cotton, and the pillows were stuffed with feathers and lavender. The air in the room was soft and sweet with dried flowers and freshly washed bedding, and the morning breeze pinched the soles of their feet when it was still dark outside. They found it hard to drift away in all that silence. Back in the city they lived in dormitories, and the dorms never slept. Someone was either blasting music, cursing their ex at an ungodly hour, barfing or crying because of deadlines. Sometimes all at once. But that night there was nothing. It was so dark, so quiet, and the night was so chilly that they thought they were in a different part of the world. Or within a vision where they owned their own place.

Since dinner and until the sleeping hour they talked ceaselessly. They laughed at the lantern’s light until they cried and choked on grape seeds. Their throat went dry only after one story, but they pushed it as if the world was in danger of ending and they hadn’t reached the punchline of the joke yet.

They’ve never gone to bed earlier than midnight before, but their minds were so tired with recalling stories and immortalising every second Yeosang smiled, and yet so hungry for scenery and naturalistic knowledge that their systems were close to collapsing.

After they said their goodnights, they lingered by Yeosang’s door. The three of them looked at each other like they ever wondered why humans needed sleep, and raising the same question of ‘why does it feel like I’ve known you my whole life’.

Despite having forgotten how to fall asleep in finer conditions, they rushed themselves into it. The sooner they would find themselves in their dreams, the sooner they would wake up and continue feeling like they lived an entire life in one day.

When outside was not bright enough, San thought he heard a rooster, but he slept through it. When he heard it crowing the second time, he remembered where he was and kept himself awake. He folded his pillow to see the window better. It had a view to the grape vines, but he bored his eyes into it as if every leaf had a name. He liked when sunlight made green look luxurious.

Wooyoung’s face was buried underneath the pillow, and the duvet was piled up over his upper body. San did him a favour and removed the weight from his back until he ran out of breath. The sound of chickens and ducks losing their minds over food was what awakened him as aggressively as a 7AM alarm. He raised his head up with a frown straight from hell, his hair looking like a storm had passed through it. San laughed and arranged his hair before bringing him closer and kissing his forehead. “Hey,”

Dropping his head onto San’s naked chest, Wooyoung murmured something unintelligible, but in San’s experience it probably meant ‘good morning’. “What’s the time?” He tried again after a while.

Making sure not to disturb his boyfriend from his post-beauty sleep, San stretched his arm over to the nightstand to grab his phone. “Eight.”

Wooyoung groaned, trying to register what that meant. “And what day is it?”

“Tuesday.”

Rolling back to his pillow, Wooyoung stretched his arms and legs, disregarding that he was deforming San’s face while pressing his fist against it in the process. “…We would have been on our way to Uni on a day like this.”

“Yeah…Yeah, we would have.” San said with a note of uncertainty, placing his phone back. “Are we really doing the right thing?”

“I don’t know. I’m going back to bed.” And he turned around, gathering the duvet between his legs.

“What if Yeosang’s waiting for us?”

A quiet moment passed where Wooyoung sobbed to himself, then groaned as he pushed the duvet away. “…Okay. I’m up.”

“Oh, so you’re suddenly up when I mention him. I see.”

“And yet you’re the one who thought of him first.”

San admitted with a confident laugh, standing up to do some quick stretching exercises. “How’d you sleep?”

Wooyoung puffed out a laugh. “I passed right out, lemme tell you.”

“Me too. Never slept so deeply before.”

“I saw that. And you’re such a light sleeper.” He put his straw slippers on and went to look out the window, anticipating. But the courtyard was empty.

They searched for Yeosang around the house, doubtful he was sleeping, but when the only voice to respond to their calls was their own echo, they gave up.

On the kitchen counter there was a small piece of paper which read ‘Morning. I didn’t know when you’d wake up so I didn’t make anything because I didn’t want the food to be cold, but I left you some things here. Enjoy :)’

“He could have woken us up.” San said, looking underneath the covered tray where the note was, where he found vegetables, eggs, and raw bacon strips.

“He’s too nice for that.”

“Yeah,” he covered the tray back, but kept the note. “Should we wait for him?”

Wooyoung nodded, taking the two empty jugs to fill with water from the well. On the fridge Yeosang left a to-do list with his morning chores, but most things were left unticked, like cleaning the courtyard or watering the houseplants. So they took it upon themselves while they waited. Throughout the house, Yeosang had approximately fifty thousand plants, half of which were growing out of control. They expressed their frustration through groans and curse words towards the poor plants as they were trying to snake their way through the vines to reach the ones in the back. “Hey, this is random, but,” San said, checking behind him before continuing “Do you think this was his grandma’s room?”

“Must be, and he doesn’t wanna change anything because…”

“…Because that’s how the house was when she was here.”

Wooyoung lowered the empty water jug, grabbing it loose enough as not to fall from his grip. The room in question was separated by a small hallway ringed with plants of various species, like a portal to a place where there was always spring, gentle sun, and fragrant winds. “Let’s go,” San said, tapping his shoulder.

It was their second morning with no caffeine to kickstart their day, and their bodies were slowly responding to it, and probably not in a good way. There was the option to go buy coffee, but they made the unspoken decision to challenge themselves to function without it. Whenever they would feel the urge to, they would complete one more task on Yeosang’s list, until the only thing left was laundry.

“Did you think about what you want to do?” San asked him as he started washing the dishes that have been there since last dinner.

“No. I’m better off not thinking.”

Wooyoung stood next to him, leaned over the counter before the window, staring in the distance at a flock of birds chasing and harmonising with each other. Not wanting to give San a chance to nag him, he left the kitchen and went to bring Peony back to the courtyard. The lamb started wagging her tail when she saw the door open, but she sprinted past Wooyoung and straight to a pink ball hidden among the flowerbed. She trampled all of them as she tried to reach her ball, sending a wave of fear like that of death through Wooyoung’s spine. He grabbed the ball in one hand, and wrapped his other arm around Peony, taking her back to a safer play space. He tried to put the bent flowers back, leaning them against each other like a house of cards, and when they would plop back, he gave Peony a sharp glare. “If Yeosang asks, I’m telling on you.”

But all Peony did was to roll the ball over to Wooyoung with her little nose, then walked back, marching in place like she was warming up. Overwhelmed but _positively_ confused, Wooyoung kicked the ball towards her, then, with her head, she pushed it back in his direction. He sat down on the stairs, ball underneath his foot, gently patting Peony’s head.

When he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket, he reached for it skeptically, more to calm his mind, but he found a message from his mother asking him what he was doing. He flicked the ball away, keeping an eye on both the phone and Peony. He opened the message only out of fear of receiving a call. He took a picture of Peony walking in circles around the ball, saying ‘playing ball with a lamb’. Soon, his mother replied asking whose lamb that was. ‘A friend’s’ he said, and set his phone on _do not disturb_ mode.

“I know why you ran off like that.” San said. Wooyoung was ready for a part two ever since he heard the kitchen door creak open.

Although he displayed sheer joy when seeing Peony being silly and adorable, his mind was afield. He went to play with her while Wooyoung watched.

“I don’t want you to hate me, but this is something that we have to do.” He held the ball just out of Peony’s reach, his heart flipping at how she tried to raise on her hind legs, but was too scared to. Taking pity on the little thing, San gave her the ball back.

“It’s been only a day. Do we really have to?”

“I mean…I’m just thinking…What went through your head when you wanted to leave? You must have had a goal or something.”

“We talked about this.”

“I know, but I can’t help but think that you had something _else_ in mind. Something you’ve been hesitant to tell me.”

“I just can’t stand the thought of having nowhere to go back to. And here…Nobody’s kicked us out from here yet.”

“…Yet.”

“Sani, don’t do this to me. You know you’re not helping.”

“I’m just trying to make you think because I don’t want you regretting this later.”

“Why can’t you just-” his next words went adrift as he peeked over San’s shoulder.

Seeing the surprised expression on his face, San looked behind him. “Hey. You’re back.”

“Sorry. I’ll let you talk, just give me a second.” Although Yeosang held a foraging knife in his hand, be brought his palms together in a pleading gesture, making himself small as he made his way there. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it. You came right in time.”

“I did?”

“Yeah, I felt like we would have fought if it wasn’t for you.” Wooyoung wrapped his arms around San’s thighs and pressed his cheek into his hip, hugging him tightly and painfully to relieve any hints of anger left.

“But if you need time alone, I could leave-”

“Just shut up.” San sighed, taking the foraging basket off Yeosang’s shoulders and guiding him to the house. “You go freshen up and we’ll make breakfast.”

“You haven’t eaten yet?”

“No. We waited for you. We’re polite like that.”

“You guys, I feel bad. I would have hurried.”

“Off you go, now.” He picked up the clothes he wore around the house and guided them to the bathroom.

It was almost 10AM when they finally had breakfast, and the more Yeosang enumerated all the things he’s done by that hour, the more Wooyoung and San lost their appetite with how useless they felt. He woke up at five, then, quietly somehow, did all his chores outside the house, then helped his neighbour repair his roof, then went out in the fields with his bike to gather weeds for the chickens and ducks, but got distracted and built a nest for the sparrows, and on his way back he found a lost duckling and spent an entire half hour looking for the mother. Then he stopped by somewhere to buy new spokes for his bike. “So how was your morning? Slept well?”

They froze at the question, trying to recall the most exciting thing they’ve done except playing ball. “Yeah. Yeah, we did. The pillows smell nice.”

“Right? That’s what my grandma used to do when I was a kid. Stuff my pillow with cotton and fresh lavender so I’d have better dreams.” He smiled, although it was a slightly forced once.

He brought a sewing kit and a straw hat he was currently in the process of making. It was just a string of braided wheat straws gathered on his lap, and Peony nibbling at the end of it. Yeosang threw her the ball, but when she would bring it back, she would get distracted by the straw braid.

Soon followed a moment of silence which nobody seemed to fill. San stared at how finely Yeosang’s hands worked. His knuckles were dry, and the tips of his fingers were red with labour. His hands were relaxed and comfortable, dexterous as they evenly sewed the straw band around. San pressed his tongue to the wall of his cheek, his mind wandering to places it hasn’t wandered in a few days. He only wished it was socially acceptable to ask someone to hold their hands after only a day of meeting them. He could only wonder how warm would that red would be against his lips.

Wooyoung, on the other hand, looked at Yeosang’s face. The way he scrunched his nose when he wouldn’t poke the needle through where he wanted. And the way he pouted when he focused on his craft. Wooyoung wanted to be the one to brush his hair that morning, and shave his face while he was at it, like he and San did. His skin was smooth and coloured with early summer, gold as ripe wheat when the sun drew the sharpest lines on his face.

“So quiet,” Yeosang whispered. He finished sewing the crown of the hat and set it down to stretch his fingers. Peony was resting at his feet, away from the sun.

“We, um,” San said as he circled back to the present moment. Yeosang laid his hands on the table. So bare, with no one to hold them. “We talked about what to do.”

“Oh,” Yeosang nodded. He withdrew his hands. They were yet to know what that meant. “And?”

“…Didn’t reach a conclusion.” San shared an uncertain smile with Wooyoung. “We thought we would ask for your opinion.”

“How do you think I could help you?”

“We’re kind of stuck at the moment. Plus this is your house. You should get a say in this too.”

“Well I’m not kicking you guys out. If you guys want to go, you’re free to. If you want to spend the rest of the summer here, then stay.”

“The rest of summer? Really?”

Yeosang shrugged. “Up to you. If you ponder over the same things, your mind will search for problems in places there aren’t any. So take it slow. Look at how pretty the view is.” He pointed towards the magnolia grove. Then he picked up the needle and continued with sewing the brim of the hat. He did not receive a reply for the first seconds, but he was not bothered by it. He’d rather the two were feeling better. Or maybe if he understood where the root of the problem was. But he didn’t know how to force information out of someone. “Let’s go somewhere,” he suggested when the silence in their circle seemed to become something else unpleasant. “You know how to ride a bike, right?”

San’s eyes sparkled at the idea, nodding so eagerly that if he was a puppy, his ears would nod with him. Wooyoung nodded too, although too embarrassed to confess that he was too scared of falling from a bike as a kid, so he’s never learned properly. He did, but. Not on two wheels.

Yeosang smiled, giving him a thumbs up. “I think I already know where to take you.”

☼

The trip happened a week later, after a two-day crash course from Yeosang on how to repair a bike, although the other two were never going to need it. But the time Yeosang spent home playing and talking to them became more precious. As days went by they became more frustrated for not spending the mornings with him because he was always too busy building houses, fixing windows or saving the world. They set alarms early, waking up before the rooster, but somehow still missed him. Until the morning when at the crack of dawn he was already in the courtyard replacing the chain on his bike. That was when his hoarding habit came in handy. He used parts from the other fifty bikes he owned, and chose the two more presentable ones to fix. They sat beside him sipping on their ice lemonade and basking their eyes into his long fingers and his veiny arms, that bloody birthmark on his temple that presented such an exquisite kissing spot, and that jawline that kept Wooyoung and San awake for two nights in a row. Yeosang’s existence itself kept them awake, but there was always a part of him that they wrote novels about when the moon was out.

In the second half of the week it was time for Wooyoung to remember how to ride a bike. San lost his patience after two minutes and went on ahead on a quick ride around the village. Or so it seemed. It wasn’t really like that. The night before he lost a game of rock-paper-scissors when they couldn’t decide who should get alone time with Yeosang first. For research. San knew how impossible Wooyoung was when he was freaked out, so he was glad he lost.

Wooyoung had this advanced flirting technique that he called the ‘damsel in distress’ that made San want to pull his hairs out one by one. Not because he hated it, but because it was effective and because it worked only for Wooyoung. But Yeosang would never give him the opportunity to use it. He was too focused on being a good instructor and giving Wooyoung clear instructions about how to slow down and how to fall safely in case of an accident. When Yeosang looked away, Wooyoung rolled his eyes to the back of his head, waiting for him to stop being professional, but when Yeosang turned around he asked ‘You got it?’ Wooyoung nodded.

The day of the trip started as early as sunrise. Yeosang would not share anything about the place he wanted to show them, but if they’ve learned one thing about him, it was that nature kept no secrets from him. If he thought highly of the place, then it must have been a sliver of heaven.

The road taken was the one around the mountain the run raised from.The one Wooyoung claimed he wanted to chase when he reached his philosophical peak. The road was smooth and clear, and he was the slowest of the three, but he had a view that brought his heart more thrill and joy than chasing the sun would. First it was Yeosang, and following behind him was San. Not as small as a sun hiding behind a mountain, but it was the closest he’s ever been to chasing one.

Yeosang leaned back, releasing the grips. He swept his hair back and proceeded to tie it again. San jerked his head around towards Wooyoung, mouthing ‘Do you see this’, and Wooyoung retorted him with a look just as shocked, mouthing back ‘I see it, how dare’. In the next second, Wooyoung saw San’s eyes flickering with a new idea, and accelerated enough to be next to Yeosang. And Wooyoung, unable to stand the fact that he couldn’t make Yeosang smile like that the entire morning, played the “Don’t leave me behind!” card. Yeosang was quick to slow down, but unfortunately the road was not wide enough for three bikes to maintain a safe distance next to each other.

Yeosang— as the only one with common sense in that moment, was the one to voice this concern. “I’ll just go on ahead so you two can stay next to each other.” And show them a smile so angelic that the two thought themselves unworthy. He thought he was doing the right thing giving them time alone and being such a loud supporter. He loved the way Wooyoung and San looked at each other, and how every place they sat beside each other became home. He felt so much joy experiencing love and affection through someone else, that he didn’t know how frustrated it made the others. Getting his attention became more difficult as days progressed.

It was the kind of weather where heat would sew burns into skin under sunlight, but where autumn was fragrant in the shadows. The air was cold and crisp, dashed with the smell of harvest, and a light of an impossible brightness poured onto the muscle lines of Yeosang’s arms and calves like the sun wanted to immortalise him as young and flourishing. He was at nature’s service, and he made music out of things that were not made to sound. He walked his fingers through the strands of grass like he played the strings of a harp, and he made every rustle into a voice. He loved things untouched by human hand, and turned every crumb of nature’s gift into its own piece of life.

He was young and he was flourishing, and following closely behind him was a blessing. San peeked back at Wooyoung, his eyes wide and aghast, wanting to see if he saw the same thing. When Yeosang would turn around, he would always smile like he loved them the same way they loved each other. He was good at pretending to do so, but how was love a complete concept if not offered by him?

If it wasn’t for him pointing towards the green tea fields, they would have not averted his eyes from him. They were far in the distance shielded by the beating sun, but their sheer existence made Yeosang smile.

“We’ll stop around here,” Yeosang said minutes after they cycled past the paddy fields. After he rested his bike underneath a tree’s shade, he took his slippers off and walked barefoot the rest of the way.

“Won’t you hurt your feet like that?” Wooyoung asked, looking at Yeosang’s feet. They weren’t the prettiest, but they were a precious sight. He had a bandage almost around his every toe.

“Oh you _city folk_. So sensitive.” Yeosang waved his hand back and forth in the air with his pinkie slightly up.

Frowning, Wooyoung took off his sneakers.

“Give him two minutes,” San provoked him, putting on his straw hat when he was two steps away from sunlight. Wooyoung showed him the middle finger when Yeosang wasn’t looking.

Yeosang brought his hands together at his back, his straw hat hanging over his shoulders, and his eyes groundward at the glittering pebbles paving the way. They were warm and some were as pointy as a dull knife, but if he looked away, it would not hurt.

Before them lied a lake of blooming lotuses as wide as a sea and almost as tall as a forests, as vast in swinging leaves as the autumn sky was of clouds. There was no other living soul in sight, and the only building present was an empty pavilion on the other side. It was crossed by a low, wooden bridge over which the flowers grew bright and wild.

“This place is so _you_ ,” San said, nudging Yeosang. He walked to his left, and Wooyoung walked to his right.

He started feeling more comfortable with being complimented by them although the boyfriend was present too, but not as comfortable as to say thank you. He smiled and nodded, then stole a glance from Wooyoung to make sure he didn’t want to toss him into the lake. “I like it here. It’s not as fun going alone. But it’s a good meditation spot.”

“Yeah, I was about to say.”

They sat down on the paved path that led to the pavilion, as it was the only place to provide shade. Yeosang tried his best to sit more towards the edge so the two would sit next to each other, but he miscalculated and found himself in the middle again. Each time that would happen, he would lean back and tuck his legs in so he would not block their sight of each other. He was trying so hard to third-wheel, but the others weren’t cooperating.

He enjoyed tranquility in open places more than anything, but an unsettling feeling pinched at the walls of his heart when they were having a quiet moment. He’s tried escaping them before just to give them some time alone. He claimed to have work to do, but they would always help him. He tried going to bed earlier, and when he did, they called it a day too.

The lotus lake wasn’t his favourite place in the world, but it was one that he frequented as often as time permitted him. But he’s heard it was a suitable place for couples. He’s seen the view many times, and although it was one he could never get bored of, he could not enjoy it while he sat between them as uncomfortable as if on a seat of splinters. San was smiling and his mind was in a good place. The expression on Wooyoung’s face was more solemn. But Yeosang was yet to tell the difference between a sad Wooyoung and a pondering one.

As he gathered his courage to speak, Wooyoung said instead “I’m going for a short walk.” And just like that, he sat up and left.

Yeosang raised a hand to tell him to stop, but he was a moment late. Then he looked over at San. “If you need time alone, please tell me.”

“No, it’s okay. We talked this morning. You don’t have to leave.”

Although Yeosang’s heart was racing, he didn’t press it. He played the moment again and again in his mind, dissecting the tone of Wooyoung’s voice and looking for millions of reasons why he wasn’t upset. His best reason was the calm smile on San’s face. If his partner was sad, then Yeosang assumed he wouldn’t be smiling.

“Did you,”Yeosang considered, leaning his back against the pavilion sill. “Fight?”

San only shook his head at first. He breathed as if the words he was about to say floated above him as visibly as clouds. He tilted his head to the right, then slowly to the left, then down at his feet. He untiled his shoelaces and tossed his sneakers back where Yeosang’s slippers were. “This place is good for him. It’s slow and peaceful and…”

“Timeless?”

“Yeah. Exactly. This is what he needs now. It breaks my heart when I have to force him into thinking about what to do next. So my guess is that he needs time alone to reflect.”

“Is the city bad for him?”

“It’s not bad, it’s just…he’s lost his passion for things he once liked. This is our last year of University, and he’s dreading it. It makes me sad to see him like this.”

“What about you. Are you sad too?”

“Hmm,” San thought, looking at a dragonfly studying a lotus blossom. It was blue and glowing like a daylight star. “The thing he’s going through now. I’ve been through it too. But in smaller phases throughout Uni. When I wanted to quit. When I’ve had enough. Right now I’m fine. This is the last streak. I’m fine.” He smiled, surprised at the confidence in his own words, and at the fact that he truly believed himself. Then he looked at Yeosang, who couldn’t meet his eyes for more than two seconds at a time. “You look like you don’t believe me.”

“I do. I just think it’s more of a case where you can’t feel lost when the person you love is also lost.”

San chuckled. “What can I say, I’ve been Wooyoung’s rock since day zero.”

Yeosang agreed with a quiet laugh. He lapsed into a string of memories from the past week, in moments when San and Wooyoung were being their purest. He wondered if he wanted to be Wooyoung, to have someone as reliable and patient as San, or if he wanted to be that person himself. Having someone to depend on sounded just as pleasant as someone putting so much faith in him. During one of the nights when he was left alone with Wooyoung, the latter opened up about how people were disapproving of his habit of treating San like an open bag for his emotional instabilities, which left Yeosang surprised. ‘I’ve never thought about you that way’ Yeosang said to him ‘I think they don’t get the fact that a lot happens in your head. You rummage, you think, and you hypothesise a lot. Your mind never takes breaks from paving you a smooth way into the future. I can see that. If I was like you, I would also need someone like San to help me remember where I left my keys’. Although he said that in a placid tone while splitting sunflower seeds open with his teeth, he almost brought Wooyoung to tears with how much attention he paid to him.

But he understood San just as much. How despite having to live actively for two people, he allowed himself the freedom of meticulously exploring landscape and inner beauty. Yeosang could guess that he has been at conflict with himself in the past even if he hadn’t told him. He spoke like someone whose every advice rooted from things he wished he knew earlier. He cloudgazed as profoundly as one would meditate, as if he tried to follow the thread of life back to its origins. He lived with a sort of patience that Wooyoung was yet to find.

“But…while you’re here…and while I’m here…it’s okay to feel lost.” Yeosang said, dipping his toes into the water, jerking it back when he underestimated how cold it was. He tried once more, but gentler.

“Is it?”

“Yeah. No one knows this place better than I do. I would find you even blindfolded. So if you need to go on a self discovery journey, go for it. I’ll bring you guys back.” He looked down at the water ripples he made with his feet, smiling with the innocence of a child.

And San shared that joy. Only he and Wooyoung knew how many times their hearts threatened to float away with how featherweight it became. With each time they brought a smile out of Yeosang, a sliver of worry would tear from their chests until the feeling of doubt became foreign.“We are. It’s just that you’re on this journey with us too. You’re the ship and the anchor and the winds.”

A sensation as subtle as a shiver but as ample as fondness cruised through Yeosang’s chest. He looked at San with gleaming eyes, unsure why he was told words that people have said to him only in dreams. It was as if he traded a handful of grains for blocks of gold. He could only wish he meant that much to someone, but San’s genuine tone left him bewildered. “That’s too much.”

“It’s not. Wooyoung and I talk about this almost every night. How boring this would have been if we hadn’t met you.”

Yeosang rolled his trousers higher, dipping his feet into the water up to his ankle. “Life’s been pretty dry here before you guy came too.”

“I thought you like it here.”

“I do. But I like it more when I get to show others around. I’ve been looking forward to taking you guys here. And there’s other places I think you’d love. Would be sad if you went back home without having gone hiking once.”

“Having a picnic in the mountains.”

“Would you climb a mountain just for a picnic?”

“Totally would.”

“Me too.”

They looked at each other, smiling ecstatically, their eyes filled with a future morning and a mountainous landscape. “Is this a plan? Is it happening?”

“Aren’t you gonna ask Wooyoung first?”

“He’ll say yes. I know him. He likes it when the three of us are together.”

“Oh…Really?”

“Yeah. Every night he went to bed smiling. It made me happy to see him like that.” He looked behind Yeosang, slightly craning his neck to search for Wooyoung. He was sat down on the bridge with his straw hat on, eyes lost in the field of lotuses. San watched him fondly. “Last night he told me that he feels like he knew you his whole life.” When Yeosang turned around to meet San again, he found him looking his way with gentle eyes and a gentler smile. “And I agreed.”

Blushing, Yeosang broke the eye contact before his fluttering heart would betray him. He brought his feet back to the surface, wiggling his toes until the bandaids came undone. “Me too. Can’t believe it’s been only a week and I already know what your first word was.”

San laughed. It was when they were clearing up their bedroom of Yeosang’s stuff and he found pictures of him from when he was a baby that it stirred a two-hour conversation about their childhoods.

“But there’s still so much we have to hear from you.” San went on, patting the surface of the water with the soles of his feet, and when the sun burned them, he tucked them away. “Your views on the natural are so intriguing.”

“I’m still searching for answers, much like Wooyoung is.” As if summoned, Wooyoung appeared into their line of sight as stealthily as a mouse. He approached Yeosang with soundless steps as if not to disturb him when he was about to rain knowledge onto his confused head. “I don’t know, I just,” Yeosang paused, locking eyes with Wooyoung as he resumed his seat next to him. He had a red line of sunburn across his cheeks and nose. Yeosang pondered, then as he looked at the clear sky, he said: “Nature’s always had this addictive factor to it. If you go for a walk through a forest you’ve never seen before, or hiking on a mountain for the first time, especially alone, you don’t know when to stop. If the road has no end, your brain doesn’t see a reason why you should stop. Our minds are driven by achievement, and if we return from a road that we haven’t completed, we don’t feel achieved. Even if our feet hurt, our minds don’t see that as a reason to stop walking. I’ve felt this so many times. I remember when I first found this place, I was itching to grab the bike and cycle past it because the road was so wide and free. If we’re in a place that our minds deem infinite, we trigger our explorative sense, and we don’t feel complete until we see every corner. That’s on mountains and forests and seashores.”

They took the sound of his voice in, biting every word as if into a ripe peach up to the core, drinking everything that was left behind in the pauses between sentences. He was a treasure of a boy. A diamond never in the rough. The quintessence of him lied within the day between the changing seasons, the smell of spring from split leaves, and sunsets. They feared that Yeosang was as ephemeral as sunsets, as something that existed in nothing but name for a matter of minutes before the moon took over.

“Let’s go,” said Wooyoung, picking his sneakers and standing up. He looked at Yeosang, then at San. The sun shining over the mountaintop. “Let’s find the end of this road.”


	2. A Walk Through Meadows, But In Blue

Half a summer flew by.

Sleep and time alone became a matter of the past, and every day when they would find each other’s eyes the first thing in the morning became so precious as if they were the only soulmates left on earth. When they sat together in silence they sent thoughts of gratitude towards the travelling clouds for having destined them to meet.

They unveiled the secrets of the natural world, stripping the earth of its layers of laws and riddles, so much that the structure of time seemed to shift where they set foot. The evening sun shone like the moon, and the moon gained rays as sharp as the sun’s. Time failed to separate them, and so it let them be. To bloom underneath each other’s light like flowers in no need of soil and water. Because there was nothing more tragic than to look at the sky and see the same clouds swinging back and forth no matter how often time pushed them away. They were a reminder of passing time, but for them it was a place for safekeeping thoughts of love. Wherever they traveled they carried unspoken feelings.

These clouds returned to them carrying heavy rain on a day when Yeosang still hasn’t returned home. When he first told San and Wooyoung that he didn’t lose his phone months ago they didn’t see it as a problem as they were always together. But that day they lost every trace of him. Outside was pouring, Peony was searching for him around the house, and the buckets left outside were rapidly overflowing with water. When they decided to go search for him, they’ve met him right at the gates, running with his slippers in one hand, and carrying a watermelon in the other. His hair and clothes were soaked, his feet muddy, but he grinned like a child as he exclaimed “Look what I got!” while lifting the watermelon over his head. San and Wooyoung were too shamelessly smitten of him to be mad. Wooyoung wrapped him in bedsheets while San dried his hair, resisting the urge to squish his flushed, dewy cheeks after the warm shower. But less than a heartbeat later Yeosang found himself embraced tenderly by two pairs of arms and tossed onto the bed caged in between them as they cooed words like “If only you knew how cute you look.” It was too warm for that form of physical contact, but Yeosang’s heart dropped like a rock down a steep slope, and that rock launched an entire rockslide. His hands were clenched around his chest, his cheek was pressed into San’s heart and he could have sworn that the warm, cushiony thing he felt on his shoulder blades were Wooyoung’s lips. He didn’t know whose leg was wrapped around his hips and who tangled their legs with his, whose arm was wrapped around his waist so tightly and whose hand played with his hair so gently. He felt like he was betraying his own morals for not telling them to stop, but he never knew how love-famished his heart and soul were until then. His heart ran into overdrive, panting and stinging while hot shivers crossed his summer-baked chest. He closed his eyes, allowing his forehead to drop comfortably on San’s chest, then he searched for the small beads from Wooyoung’s bracelet, and timidly laid his hand against his.

And they lied together like that until the rain stopped. Yeosang might have fallen asleep. Someone might have kissed his hair. He didn’t know.

But that day was life-altering for him. Out of common sense (and the inability to communicate complex feelings smoothly) he allowed that day to become a memory. And a memory it remained until _city folk_ decided it was okay to crash in his bed. It didn’t happen every night, only during stormy ones. And while the rain struck the grass and crops deeper into the ground, Yeosang lied with his head on Wooyoung’s lap, eyes closed, and fingers caressing his hair while San read them from the book he always carried with him. Wooyoung bragged about San’s reading voice as if it was his own, and Yeosang didn’t believe it until he heard it for himself. Gentle and smooth, and yet so powerful that no thunder startled him.

“I want to listen to Yeosang read,” San said as he put the bookmark in after finishing the chapter. It was an eerily quiet night, and he whispered almost inaudibly as both their doors were still open.

Wooyoung’s eyes sparkled at the idea. “I knew it. I knew you wanted to. I thought you’d never bring it up.”

“You were waiting for _me_ to bring it up? You’re the one with an obsession for reading voices.”

“Yeah, but I saw,” he shifted closer to San, then whipped his head around, trying to decide whether to close the door or not. He trusted that Yeosang was already asleep. “I saw the way you look at him.”

San lied a protective hand over the book resting on his chest, giving Wooyoung a fond smile. “Oh, yeah?” He brushed the tip of his nose against his, then kissed it softly. “How do I look at him?”

Wooyoung lifted San’s arm and wrapped it around himself as he lied his head on his shoulder. “Like I look at you when you read to me. But I like it. I like the way you look at him. I was scared you wouldn’t.”

Placing the book back on the nightstand, San rolled over to his side and embraced Wooyoung, tucking his head to his chest. He looked towards the open door. “…But are we ready to do this again?”

Wooyoung drew in a slow, thoughtful breath. The smell of lavender in their pillows has never been so poignant. “…I’m not good at making decisions, remember?”

Sinking his nose through his hair, San also drew in a quiet breath. If he didn’t know it was Wooyoung he was embracing, he would not have recognised that smell on him. Whether his hair was freshly washed or not, he smelled differently. Yeosang said that the two smelled alike, whereas San argued that after a day of not leaving each other’s side, he and Wooyoung started to bear the same scent. The smell of blushing roses when they sat together on the swing bed, and petrichor when they ran home from the field. “I didn’t ask you to decide. I asked you if we’re ready.”

“If it’s him I don’t mind.” Wooyoung whispered, burying his face into San’s chest, hiding from having to explain himself where the sudden shyness came from.

Chuckling, San kissed his head one more time. “Me neither.”

☼

When he heard the kitchen door open two rooms away, San put his phone down and untangled Wooyoung from around him. He woke up about an hour earlier, and he was currently exchanging messages with his classmate. He stretched his arms and back as he walked over to the window, leaning against the sill. He already knew the drill.

Soon he saw Yeosang with the same covered tray with breakfast ingredients he left for them. San whistled to get his attention, startling him. “What you up to?”

“Oh, um,” he set the tray down and made his way over to the window. Just then San noticed the bouquet of flowers on the table. “I’m gonna clean my grandparents’ resting place. Must’ve gotten pretty messy after the rain.”

The corners of San’s lips twitched downwards. Although Yeosang smiled, he did not think it was his right to do so too. “Oh…Do you…need someone to come with you?”

Peeping over San’s shoulder at Wooyoung’s limbs lost among the bedsheets, Yeosang shook his head. “I’ll take Peony. I’ll be back soon.”

“No, take your time. It’s okay. We’ll be good boys.” San winked.

“If you’ll be good boys, then please eat. Don’t wait for me.”

But they didn’t. As soon as he heard the gates close, he went to wake Wooyoung up to get started on Yeosang’s morning chores. After they finished watering the plants and checking on the new propagation station, they went to the garden and picked two bouquets of flowers. One to leave by the door of the grandparents’ bedroom, and a smaller one to decorate the handle with. They learned the names of all the plants in the house and secretly did research on how to care for them so Yeosang would have less to do.

They thought they did a good thing, easing him of his responsibilities, until one day Yeosang decided to rebuild the swing bed in order to fit the three of them. It was a task that took several days, combined with the other tasks Yeosang gave himself, but they were too scared to move anything without his instructions. He didn’t share his vision with anyone.

“…It’s your birthday tomorrow,” Wooyoung said. They were in the kitchen preparing _hwachae_.

“Is it? I forgot.”

“You wanna do something?”

San shook his head. “If tomorrow’s gonna be a day like this, then I’ll be happy.”

“Minus Yeosang being away, right?” Wooyoung nudged him, picking a small piece of watermelon on the tip of the knife and feeding it to him.

“But does he know? Maybe he forgot too.”

Wooyoung shrugged, trying to seem just as uncertain. But Yeosang, in fact, did know. He was the one who remembered first a few days back. He purposely saved their hiking trip and the picnic for his birthday. He wanted it to be a special day for them to spend as a couple, but Wooyoung almost lost his patience trying to convince him how happy it would make San if the three of them were together.

“Do you think we should tell him? You know…” San asked after a while, checking the time to see how long it’s been since Yeosang left.

“I was gonna ask him if he’s ever had a boyfriend first.”

“What if he says no?”

“Then I’m gonna ask ‘Have you ever had two’?”

San covered his mouth in fear of choking on the watermelon juice as he laughed. “You’re unbelievable.”

“You told me. Was joking, though. I’m too nervous to ask.”

“Yeah, you never took rejections well.”

Wooyoung clicked his tongue, pointing a threatening spoon at his partner. He gave San a plastic bowl of finely minced watermelon to feed the ducks, pulling him up from his seat. “Make yourself useful instead of calling me out.” Then he held his hand over San’s mouth, knowing too well that he was about to steal a kiss from him, or do something equally as annoying to erase that pout from his face.

San picked the biggest pieces of watermelon he found and secretly fed them to the rabbits to get them to like him, as everything that moved made them anxious and they would not eat until they were alone. The ducks on the other hand, they annihilated everything in milliseconds after being fed. He climbed onto the swing bed structure to reach a bunch of grapes that have been tempting him since that morning. The benefits of being Yeosang’s friend grew by the day.

“How the hell did you get up there?”

San jolted at the new voice, which took too long for him to realise it wasn’t Wooyoung’s. “…H-Hi?” He turned around, holding the grape bunch between its teeth by its stem, his hand suspended in the air as it tried to reach something to support himself. “Back so soon.” But then he gave up and jumped down.

“You didn’t eat, did you?”

“When have we ever eaten without you is the better question.”

Shaking his head hopelessly, Yeosang dropped down on the bench and changed into his slippers, then made a run for his room while Peony was all over San. But what he did was to quickly drag his sweatpants on and sneak into the kitchen while trying to put his shirt on. “Hey, did you talk to him about tomorrow?” He asked Wooyoung in a whisper while still fumbling around to drag his shirt over his chest. They’ve seen each other shirtless a bunch of times before, especially during the nights when they washed each other’s hair in the courtyard when the steam in the bathroom became unbearable, but they still felt flustered when Yeosang showed an inch more of bare skin than what a T-shirt hid beneath.

“No, he thinks you forgot. So let’s just surprise him.”

“But…Are you sure you guys want me to-”

“Yes, shut up.” Wooyoung passed him the breakfast tray while he carried the bowls of _hwachae_.

Outside, San was sitting on the stairs, peeling grapes for Peony while she was eating the tips of his hair. There was no way to stop her from doing that other than feeding her something else.

“Wooyoung, your birthday is…” Yeosang trailed on, holding the tray higher, careful not to step on Peony who was now determined to make him trip. The overwhelming amount of attention she received from everyone only boosted her ago. “…In November, right?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll try to be there.”

“There?”

“Well I assume you’re not gonna be here then, so,” Yeosang timidly scratched the shell of his ear, avoiding their eyes and throwing Peony a small cube of watermelon. “Maybe I’ll pay you guys a visit? If you want, I mean.”

“I’d much rather come here. At least I’d have an excuse not to get any surprise visits from anyone.”

“Really? I took you for the type who throws party over party for your birthday.”

“I did, but…Sani said he doesn’t like how I behave at parties, so I don’t organise any these days.” And Yeosang almost pitied him for using that pained tone. Until he stuck his tongue out at San, then San returned the gesture.

“Nah, you’re too wild for me. I can barely handle you when you’re drunk. I’ve been good with you not testing my patience.” He drew his legs back right away, knowing Wooyoung was about to kick him under the table. “How ‘bout you?” He nudged Yeosang. “Guessing you don’t throw parties for your birthday.”

“Nah. If my neighbours didn’t remember it, I’d totally forget about it. Sometimes they come over with their grandkids and bring so much food I have leftovers for days…Also my parents call once at two years, so that’s great.”

“…You’ve never talked about your parents before.” Wooyoung pointed out on a careful tone.He looked underneath the table so he won’t accidentally kick Peony.

“Yeah. We don’t have much of a relationship. They weren’t very supportive of me moving here. They were embarrassed, in fact. They probably want nothing to do with me anymore. But that’s okay. I have this whole property on my name that I don’t have to pay rent for.” He picked the bowl and drank all the remaining watermelon juice, wiping it off his chin when it spilled. “If you’ll excuse me, I have a swing bed to build.”

Wooyoung and San were quick to notice the sudden change of subject, and although they wanted to press it a little further with an apology, they decided not to. They were guilty for thinking so, but sometimes they forgot that Yeosang’s ever had a life outside that village. They saw pictures with how the house used to look two years back, and if Yeosang hadn’t been there to explain the process behind renovating and redecorating it, they would have never recognised it. The wall of climbing roses and the swing have not been there before.

“So after we finish the swing-” Yeosang was about to say right when they commenced the work.

“There’s more?” But San was mentally tired. Not that anyone forced him to do anything. He was the first one to jump in whatever Yeosang wanted to do, and he wanted to impress the boy too much to not help him.

“Yeah, I wanna set up a hammock in the garden. I’ve always wanted one. I also want to go fishing in the evening because I haven’t gone in two months, but I don’t know if there’s time for that. And! I also wanna go boating. And I dreamt I went swimming in the lake, so I have to go swimming now.”

“You have to?”

“Yes. I’m not joking, if I don’t go, I won’t sleep tonight. I’ve done this before. I dreamt I was in a forest picking raspberries and then a voice from the sky told me that the summer won’t end if I don’t make raspberry jam. I thought it was just a dream, but then the next night I didn’t sleep. So I went through the forest and picked raspberries.”

“And you made raspberry jam.”

“Yes. And then I slept. And now it’s happening again. But I…” he broke off, staring into the distance. He slowly put the hammer down, immersing himself in the sudden surge of ideas and schemes. It was spellbinding to see Yeosang’s mind at work, but whatever his mind was cooking up in there, it meant work. Lots of hours of work. But because San and Wooyoung were whipped for him beyond sanity, that meant it was work for them as well.

“Oh, no, please don’t.” Wooyoung begged. He wasn’t helping with rebuilding the swing. Not after last time. He was responsible with playing with Peony so she won’t bother them.

“Yeosang, don’t. I know that face. Don’t do it.” San tried to shake the ideas out of him like a snow glass ball.

“I have to do it.”

“I don’t know what you have to do, but no. You don’t have to do anything. We have to finish this swing first. Then we’ll see what we have time for. You don’t have to do everything today.”

“…That’s where you’re wrong.” Yeosang mumbled. That was that most upset he’s ever been.He’s never met people who wouldn’t let him work. But _city folk_ were lucky that he liked them. “Wooyoung, have you ever sown a hammock before?”

Instead of being met with a disapproving reaction full of groans, San laughed and Wooyoung looked at him like he wanted to curse him. “He was born with a silver spoon. He doesn’t even know how to find the end of a thread.”

“I wasn’t, don’t tell him that!” Wooyoung protested.

“You mean like…in a rich family?” Yeosang asked just to make conversation, but he knew it was true. He picked on how Wooyoung tried not to be picky with his food, and how he avoided activities which implied getting dirty, and how his first impulse when it rained was to seek shelter. But Yeosang also picked on how hard he was trying to prove them that’s he’s different. Although Yeosang teased him for it, he liked him the way he was. Unlike him, Wooyoung was meticulous when it came to how he plated his food, he cleaned up the mess San made after he searched through his bag and his stuff ended up scattered all over the floor. He was special in his own way. When they went searching for lotus roots the other week, Yeosang didn’t want Wooyoung to get his, quote unquote ‘pretty _city folk_ feet’ dirty, so he waited by the edge of the lake with Peony in his arms, while he and San threw handfuls of mud to each other, and pulled the lotus roots so much that they tripped each other. Wooyoung disliked himself for it. Until Yeosang called him a princess. Jokingly. Then he started embracing it.

“No…No, it’s nothing like that— And I do know how to find the end of a thread, just so you know.” To prove a point, he took Peony into his arms like a baby, went back into the house, and returned with a pen and a notepad where he started sketching the hammock. He did so while standing up and against the wall after Peony attempted to eat the pen.

Yeosang watched him fondly. He was loud and sometimes too mean to San, but he was equally protective of both of them and made them smile and laugh as if it was his responsibility. He wasn’t sure what he was sketching there, but he trusted him.

“Looking at my man, are you?” San teased, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively, and nudging him.

There was a blinding sparkle in his eyes, and so much goodness in his tone that made Yeosang dig himself a hole and never crawl out. “No…No, I didn’t— I mean, not in that way. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“No, I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry. I just thought it was nice that-”

“Yeosang, look at me.” And Yeosang did so, while furiously trying to wipe the blush away from his cheeks, only to make them redder. His breath cut off when San touched his chin to raise it higher. “I said it’s okay. I like it.”

Yeosang almost choked on his words “You like it?”

“Yeah. I like the way you look at him. And I like the way he looks at you too.”

“…Why would you,”

“Because there’s kindness in your eyes when you look at each other, so why would it bother me?”

San’s never imagined he would ever get to see someone descend into madness so quickly. Not only through his flushed cheeks and shaken eyes, but through the confusion in his gestures. He picked up different types of nails, suddenly unaware of the kind he needed. San took pity on him and handed him a nail of the right size.

“Whatever you’re whispering about, I hope it’s about me.” Wooyoung said, pocketing the pen and ripping the page from the notepad.

“Yeosang said you’re cute.”

“I didn’t!” Yeosang protested, then he paused, carefully placed the hammer down, then shoved San, frustrated at how he only managed to make him laugh louder.

“Oh, finally,” Wooyoung exhaled as relieved as if the greatest burden of the world lifted off his shoulders. “After almost two months,” he dramatically flipped his hair over his shoulder “Don’t look at me like I haven’t told you you’re cute like fifty times.”

He did, or so Yeosang tried to forget. He didn’t remember the number of times Wooyoung called him cute, but he remembered the times he scolded him for it. ‘You have a boyfriend, don’t say stuff like that to me’. And all Wooyoung did was to call him cute again.

“Anyway,” Wooyoung changed the subject before Yeosang would implore before his very eyes “Where can I find some fabric?”

Clearing his throat, Yeosang pointed vaguely towards the storage room, but he didn’t remember what it was called. His mind was overcast. “I-I’ll show you,”

He took off his working gloves and wobbled over the storage room like a newborn lamb, avoiding Wooyoung’s eyes as if they could curse him into a city life. Months ago when they rearranged all of his hoarded items, San urged them to at least organise them in order of usage. Yeosang was the one who determined what went where, but in that moment he didn’t remember anything. The hardware and fishing equipment were in their own corner, the smaller items were arranged on the shelves, but he couldn’t remember where he put the things his grandma once used.

“…I say these things to lighten up the atmosphere, or just to be funny. You know, to get a reaction,” Wooyoung said, and his voice echoed throughout the room as softly as a morning bird. “Although they’re true,” he sat with is back against the wall, giving Yeosang all the space he needed. He smiled. “But I don’t want to make you uncomfortable. Or… _we_ don’t.”

“No, I know, I just…I’m bad at showing the right reaction. The things you say are not bad things, but I just don’t want to get in between you guys and…And I sometimes don’t get why you’re saying these things because, you know, you’re together, and I’d feel bad if you fought because of me and…” he exhaled, then turned around and went to hide himself in the only empty corner of the room, face buried in his palms. “I don’t know how to do this. I’m sorry.”

“Later,” Wooyoung said, tickling the nape of Yeosang’s neck until he turned around. “Why don’t we talk about it?”

Yeosang nodded, his back still pressed against the wall. “Okay.” Then he took a deep breath to regain himself and went to search for the roll of fabric.

☼

“Please admire and show your appreciation in five words or more.” Wooyoung said, presenting his masterpiece of a hammock with more pride than for anything else he’s ever made. After the sixty hours he spent sewing and folding the fabric to secure the piece of wood in there, and the extra three hours for cursing while trying to drill holes into it, it was a lovely piece to look at.

“Not bad, I’m impressed.” San nodded, gently slapping Wooyoung’s back. Like a _bro_.

“That’s not five words.” Wooyoung protested, but he was ignored.

“It looks really good.” Yeosang checked the intricate knots Wooyoung made around the tree branches. They were randomly tied, but it looked sturdy.

“That’s not five words!” But he was ignored again.

“Thank you for taking the time to do it.” Yeosang said, counting each word on his fingers, then showing him. “Really, I thought you were just gonna do the normal, camping one. I appreciate it.”

“Not too shabby for some _city folk_ , huh?”

“I may have underestimated you.”

For the first five seconds in which San lied down in the hammock, Wooyoung felt nervous. Then seconds passed, during which he carelessly swung in the evening breeze, arms folded at the back of his head, and eyes closed. The hammock was set up against two apple trees, in a spot that provided complete shade only in the evenings. “So what now?”

“You guys look pretty tired.”

San set his foot down to anchor the hammock, then lifted himself up. “You said you wanted to go swimming.”

“…Are we still going?”

“If it means you’re gonna sleep tonight, sure.”

“Oh, okay. I’ll go get the bikes, then.” He said in a voice that would sound demoralising to a stranger, but to those who knew him, it was clear that it held the pure joy of a child who found excitement in the simplest things.

“I wish things made me happy that easily too,” San said softly as he watched Yeosang go.

“…If things keep going like this, I think they will.”

☼

With minutes left of dusk, they chased the line of sunlight like they were afraid Yeosang wasn’t going to sleep if they didn’t. They were as close to chasing the sun as the metaphor could take them, with Yeosang ahead of them, hair untied and arms bare.

They wished for the road to be wider and the world immaterial so they would be next to each other to watch the sunset colour their cheeks in pastels.

There was no one else by the lake at that hour. The earth was cooling down, the winds warm and humid, and the lake was gently kissing its shores on the tips of its fingers. A boat filled with leaves was stationed by the docks, with the reflection of the short trees shimmering in the ripples around it.

They left the front lights of their bikes on for when it got too dark, then aimlessly tossed their slippers into the grass. They filled their lungs wth the purple air of the scenery, as a feeling of being unbound by convention crossed through them like a shiver.

“I’ve always wanted to see a lake with an island in the middle. We drove past one when I was on holiday with my parents. Been wanting to see one since.” Wooyoung said. He brought his knees to his chest and held them there— a closed off position he was hardly ever seen in.

“Me too. It’s like your own tiny piece of land. I don’t think there’s any nearby. But there’s so many lakes we haven’t visited yet.”

San sat on the edge of the docks, first looking at the shoreline from the other side, then back at the two. “We could. One every month for all the summers to come.”

“Just one? That’s it?” Yeosang challenged, sitting next to him.

“Then…One lake, one river, and one mountain. Every month. Hopefully one of us will get a car by next year. That’ll make things easier. And then we can go wherever. And you,” he looked at Yeosang “You can’t say no.”

“…Okay. We’ll go.”

“You don’t sound so sure.”

“I guess I…I don’t know, I’ve never had long lasting relationships like those. People I went to school with are long gone.”

Wooyoung drew his side profile with his eyes, then reached his hand to tuck Yeosang’s hair behind his ear. While Yeosang’s nervous system went into overdrive, Wooyoung wrapped his arm around Yeosang’s shoulders, bringing him into a loose side hug. Yeosang froze, looking at San. If he decided to throw him into the lake, at least he knew how to swim. “We knew what it was like not to have someone like you around. And now that we do, I don’t ever wanna go back. I’m sure Sani feels the same.”

“I do. You’re like,” he left his next words hanging, as a new thought occurred to him as vehemently as an astrological phenomena never before seen. “…You’re like the book we’re reading.”

“The book?”

“Yeah…If the book was a person. It’d be you.”

Wooyoung gasped, as if he was the second one to ever see the stars shift. “You’re right.”

Confused, Yeosang looked at Wooyoung, although he was too close, then at San. “But that’s too profound for me.”

“Boy, have you listened to yourself? If I didn’t know who wrote that book, I would have thought it was you.”

“You speak in the same tone the book was written in. It’s insane. The way you talk about the world. What you have around you. How you make everything sound so magical. I wish I could do that too. I wish I could see the world like you do.”

“But how do you see the world?”

“I don’t see as many good things as you do. My vision is not so clear.”

“You flatter me. My vision isn’t clear either. I don’t know if you noticed, but I nitpick a lot. I talk like this only about places I like. When you talked about your University, I tried to imagine it, and it brought me a lot of anxiety. Big buildings with a lot of people are a no-no for me. But I don’t doubt the campus isn’t beautiful. Sometimes you have to filter the things you see to find the beauty in it. The way I see the world isn’t better than the way you see it. Maybe your vision is more raw. Maybe you associate places that were once beautiful with bad people, and they stained your vision. But it’s not bad. It’s two sides of the same coin. There’s beauty in modern and traditional, but one would not exist without the other. If there was no traditional, there would be no modern. If there was no modern, then the traditional would not have had the chance to evolve. See what I mean? These, just like our visions about the world, complete each other. So don’t feel bad.”

Wooyoung looked at him with thoughtful eyes, making Yeosang feel quite proud of himself for being able to comfort him in so many words. “So what you’re saying is that…” Wooyoung broke off, lifting his hand from Yeosang’s back. “We complete each other. Oh, I couldn’t agree more.”

San laughed, pushing Wooyoung away with his foot. “Don’t tease him, he was trying to comfort you!”

“I’m not teasing him, I was trying to figure it out!” He patted Yeosang’s back to bring him back from whatever level of flustered he was in. “That’s what you said, right?”

“I,” Yeosang hid his face under the collar of his shirt. “I don’t know what I said.”

“Because I think that’s totally true— I’m not being funny, you can stop hiding now.” But Yeosang didn’t budge. “I feel like our views do complete each other. Except Sani. Sani’s a bit of everything.”

“I can’t believe you’re excluding me over this.” San wanted to push him again, but Wooyoung caught his ankle when he was ready to attack, and tickled the sole of his foot until he withdrew it again.

“I think,” Yeosang began, moving further away from the two before he would wake up to someone’s foot in his face. “Wooyoung’s the one who’s a bit of everything. You’re the one who came here to find yourself. San’s vision is pretty clear. He’s the one who interprets and ponders over every paragraph he reads.”

“Just say you like him better and go.” Wooyoung pouted.

“…I didn’t say that. I like you both the same way. For different reasons.”

“Really?” San said in a tone Yeosang knew too well. One that he was afraid of too. He’s never experienced the act of flirting live until these two, but he thought that if someone would ever flirt with him, they would use that cheeky tone. “What reasons?”

“I can’t do this,” Yeosang said in the softest way one could possibly revolt in, getting a good lough out of the two. He fanned the blush out of his face although it had gotten quite dark and no one would be able to tell.

“I think we broke him.” Wooyoung seemingly whispered.

“Ah, no you didn’t, I was just gonna go-” Yeosang attempted, turning around to find a T-shirt tossed away not to far from his feet. “…Swim,” Fear bloomed in his chest nauseously, but as it settled, he realised that wasn’t that. It was a form of dark curiosity that he’s managed to escape his whole life as he was never exposed to it. He knew that shirt belonged to San, and he knew what they were there for, but nothing could have prepared him for that. Excitement still sparked somewhere in him, but this spark, this electric shiver lied on a surface of water, and if he stepped on it, he would get hurt.

“You coming with?” San asked, and so close to Yeosang’s feet fell a pair of shorts.

Yeosang nodded. San gave him a quick thumbs up before taking a few steps back to gain momentum, then ran as fast as storm winds, and once he was in the air he curled himself up into a ball and dove in with a splash so grand like the three sets of an archangel’s wings. He swam back to the surface, taking a deep bite of air, and sweeping the hair out of his face with both hands. “Oh, it’s warm!”

“You scared me!” Wooyoung said, crawling over to the edge of the dock on his palms and knees just to walk his fingers through the water. “You shouldn’t have jumped like that.”

“I’m good, don’t worry your pretty heart.” San swam back to the dock and kissed his hand, then leaned on his back and floated as carelessly as a plank.

While they were busy with each other, Yeosang went behind the bike lights to remove his clothes after he decided that doing that in front of two pretty boys would take him out. He followed San and dashed towards the edge of the dock with no warning, and as he jumped, he twisted in the air, diving in with a much higher impact than San did. San swam away in panic, but he still got splashed in the face as if a wave slammed into him. “You could have warned me!” He reproached him, crashing over him with one arm around his neck, and the other pinching and kneading his cheeks.

“I’m sorry,” he tried to laugh through the pain of having his face distorted, but then San wiped away all the excess water from his eye— although his hand was equally as wet, and brushed back all the hair from his face.

“It’s okay you guys, I’m not feeling left out or anything. You have fun there.” Wooyoung sulked, turning his back to them, arms crossed over his chest.

San rolled his eyes to the back of his head, although he smiled fondly, swimming around freely just to make Wooyoung more envious. He counted the seconds until he would turn back around and ask for attention. If it wasn’t for Yeosang. Because him, on the other hand, entered his usual _panic mode_ when he felt like he was interfering. He swam back to the docks, then pulled himself up enough for his elbows to support him, and with one hand, he tugged on the hem of Wooyoung’s shirt. “You too.”

Having received the dose of attention he deserved— and his ego stroked as a bonus, Wooyoung smiled. “I was joking. I can’t swim.”

“Oh,” Yeosang looked at him as he caressed his soaked hair. “We’ll keep you afloat. And the water over here is not that deep. If you stick around the dock you’ll be able to reach the bottom.”

“You want me to join you that bad?”

Yeosang foresaw the attack, but just like in the past million times, he wasn’t ready. “…It’s more fun when we’re all together.”

Sighing out his dissatisfaction at the anticlimactic answer, Wooyoung stood up to remove his clothes. Another attack nobody bothered to prepare Yeosang for. “If you’re not gonna open your arms and welcome me in, then I’m not coming.”

Defeated, Yeosang looked towards San, who became nothing more than a message in a bottle floating wherever the tides of great seas took him. “…S-San?”

“Shh. I’m disintegrating.”

Yeosang sighed, and swam over to where he could reach the bottom. He studied Wooyoung’s form although no cell in him wanted him to, and hell knew why the lights pointed to a certain part of his body that he also did not want to see. He took Wooyoung’s hand, holding his other arm raised as well, ready to support him. Wooyoung jumped in as he held his breath, holding Yeosang’s hand like he wanted to tear it off. The water was just above his chest. He wiggled his toes in attempt to relax himself, with no intention of letting Yeosang go. “Are you…scared of water?”

“No,” Wooyoung exhaled.

“He is.” San confirmed, and Wooyoung clicked his tongue. He was too far for him to walk there and flip him over.

“You wanna stand closer to the shore?” Yeosang asked. Wooyoung was doing a thing with his hands— playing with his fingers maybe, but now that he knew he was afraid, he could let it slide.

“No…I’m okay. Just…if you could flip San over, that’d be great.”

“Let’s go there.”

“No. No, that’s too deep.”

“I’ll take you there. It’s okay. I got you.”

“…You got me, huh?”

“Y-Yeah.”

Wooyoung sighed, reluctantly letting go of Yeosang’s hands. “Okay.”

Yeosang didn’t know much about blind trust, although Wooyoung told him about it before when he first let them inside his house. It was one of the few times when Wooyoung sat him down like a parent and put his palms together like a parent and explained everything slowly like a parent. If Yeosang was an asshole— which he wasn’t, he would have pushed Wooyoung away to fend for himself when they were too far away from the shore, even as a joke, but his heart softened when he saw how much trust he placed in him.

Wooyoung held onto his shoulders, and the pulse of the shore grew more quiet and muffled as they distanced from it, distracting himself with everything from counting Yeosang’s strands of hair, although it was dark, to finding approximately a thousand ways to let him know how scared he was.

“How the hell are you doing that?”

“What, swimming?”

“No. Not drowning.”

“I’ll show you.”

“No, no, no, I’m okay. I’m okay. Don’t let go.”

“I’m not. Just trust me. Hold onto that.” Yeosang pointed towards the dock bracing. “Now fill your lungs with air, hold your breath, and let go.”

“You tryna kill me.” He looked down at where the water met Yeosang’s chest. He was doing something underwater to keep himself afloat.

“No. I promise I won’t let anything happen to you.”

“If you don’t do it!” San shouted. Only the moon knew where he was, but soon sounds of splashing drew closer, along with Wooyoung’s urge to deck a certain someone in the face. “I’ll tell Yeosang-”

“No, don’t you dare-”

“-What you said about him that night!”

“Shut the fuck up?!” Wooyoung shouted, his voice degrading into a pitiful whine, wrapping his legs around the bracing and hiding his face from the world. He waited for the opportune moment when San was close enough to splash water into his face, and when he felt himself slipping, he erratically kicked water with his feet until San had no choice but to seek shelter behind Yeosang.

“If you don’t want me to say it, stop being a wuss and do it. Water’s not gonna kill you.” San said, almost in the form of a threat, grabbing Yeosang by the shoulders, although the splashed stopped, because Wooyoung could never hurt him. Not even in the form of playing.

“…I don’t wanna play like this. You’re being mean.”

“It’s okay, if you don’t wanna do it, then you don’t have to,” Yeosang smiled like the angel he was, and reached his hand for Wooyoung to take, then quickly withdrew it. “But I’m not getting you out of there until you told me what you said.”

“…I’ll just crawl to the shore.”

“Okay.”

“Wait!” Wooyoung found the courage to release the bracing with one hand. “Remember when I took care of Peony that day? You said you owe me a favour. So you can’t leave me here…Right? You like me. I know you do.” He tried his best at bargaining, in a much more offended tone that he should have. Even if he spoke a foreign language, his despair not to be left too far from the shore was so clearly translated through his voice.

Both he and San laughed, and it was as if Yeosang didn’t know why anymore. His heart started beating out of rhythm, and he was thankful for the dark around them that it concealed a part of his face. He could only hope that San would unwrap his arms from around him. One by one, fragments of his affective side drifted away, collided, and shattered until he could not tell where the sound of his heart was coming from anymore. From one place, or two others. “I guess, I-” he stuttered, feeling San’s arms loosening from around him. “I mean— I’m gonna…Sorry,”

“For what? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, just…Should I take you to the shore?”

“No, I was joking. I’m just gonna leech onto you guys and pray you won’t drown.”

“Then. I’ll take a moment.” Yeosang mumbled with a forced smile as he distanced from them, then filling his lungs with air, and swam in the direction where the lights wouldn’t reach him.

“Did I say something wrong?” Wooyoung asked in a near whisper, as San made his way over and held onto the dock bracing. The ripples that formed around him sparkled in the pale light, and only the rhythm of him kicking and splashing would give away where he was going.

“No. I don’t think you did. We’ll ask when he’s done.”

“But he just left like that.”

“He said he needs to go for a swim if he wants to sleep tonight. Let’s just let him. Come here,” he said, giving Wooyoung his hand.

And Wooyoung, naive and vulnerable and somewhat stranded in a place he had no control over, took San’s hand, his life flashing before his eyes when he pulled him away from his safe spot. Wooyoung hugged him tightly with both his arms and legs. As he kissed his forehead, San apologised for teasing him, and after a much shorter persuading session, Wooyoung agreed to place his sanity in San’s arms and allow him to teach him how to stay afloat. But only if they held hands. Soon San noticed that Wooyoung’s attention was on the other shore, and suggested they left it for another time when his heart was more at peace.

Once out of the water, they sat on the edge of the docks with their towels over their heads. San reached for his bag and picked a handful of apricots they picked on their way there, eating the smaller ones entirely instead of splitting them in half. He tossed the kernel into the lake before remembering that Yeosang said to keep them. He split the second one in half and forced Wooyoung to eat it so he’d stop sulking. “It’s my fault.”

San groan, rolling his eyes, and fed him the other half of the apricot. “Shut up and eat.”

But Wooyoung grabbed his wrist, pushing it back towards him instead. “But I ruined it. We were supposed to swim and play and-”

“Eat. The apricot. And Stop. Talking. It’s fine. Trust me.” He took the first chance he got when Wooyoung attempted to curse him, shoving the apricot in his mouth, fully expecting for Wooyoung to bite his fingers, but doing nothing to stop him.

“You think he’s mad at me?”

“I’m not mad at you.” Yeosang’s voice popped up from beyond the lights. A standing figure with soaked skin and muddy feet, and the most uncovered the world’s seen him.

While Wooyoung was trying not to choke on the damned apricot, San stood up and wrapped the other beach towel around Yeosang’s shoulders. “Are you asking for a cold? What were you thinking? How did you get here?”

“I didn’t realise I swam to the other shore…So I just decided to walk back.”

“…You’re insane, you know that?”

“I guess.” He sketched a smile, and San poked his nose. “D’you mind turning around? Gonna take these off.” He stuck his thumb beneath the waistband of his briefs. “It’s…cold.”

San nodded, fixing the towel around his waist, then sat back down before his knees would give in. Somehow when fabric sled down Yeosang’s legs, nature wasn’t as loud.

Wooyoung held an apricot over his shoulder for Yeosang to take, his eyes on the rising moon. He scooted more towards the edge of the dock so Yeosang would sit where he always did when they were together. But when he looked behind him, he found him sitting slightly behind them. He took the apricot with a bright smile on, wiped it quickly against the towel before taking a generous bite.

“Are you okay?” Wooyoung asked reluctantly, looking down at his feet as he dipped them in water.

“Yeah. There’s been a lot on my mind lately. And I had to water it down, funny enough. I wasn’t mad at anyone.” He looked at Wooyoung as he spoke, taking another apricot and placing it in his hand.

Wooyoung never had the courage to tell either of them that he didn’t like apricots. He wanted to see them smile more than he hated the bloody fruit. But the ones that San and Yeosang fed him happened to be the sweetest. “And what did you think about?”

Yeosang liked it better when he could see the two of them rather than having them next to him. Such as the way they sat then. He didn’t like it when he had to turn his head away from one of them in order to talk to the other. If he looked at San, he liked having Wooyoung in his sight as well. Even if he spoke to just one of them, it made him happier to know that they were both looking at and listening to him as passionately as he listened to them. “…Why me?” He finally mustered the courage to ask. He wasn’t looking at either of them.

“Why you?”

He nodded. “You two…You’re a thing, right?…So then, why me? Why not…each other?”

“Oh,” San said, breaking into a nervous smile right away. “Didn’t expect to talk about it today out of all days.” He patted Wooyoung’s thigh, whom he could sense was more unready and nervous than he was. “My answer is that you exude a form of comfort that fits within my mental safety and health. The same kind of comfort that I find in Wooyoung.”

“Wait I didn’t think we were giving profound answers.” Wooyoung’s head suddenly went blank when it was his turn to answer. “I was just gonna say I have a crush on him.”

Yeosang startled. He pointed at himself.

“Yeah. On you. I like your mind a lot. I…I know I’m guilty of speaking out of control when my heart takes of over. But when I heard the way you speak, I just…I don’t know. I lost it for a bit.”

“But…But you have a boyfriend.”

“And? My boyfriend has a crush on you too.” He pointed at San, who nodded shamelessly.

Yeosang’s mouth hung open, switching his eyes from one to the other like a broken compass. “Is this legal?” He ask in the most deliberate tone he could convey at that time, not expecting to make the others laugh. “Guys, I’m being serious.”

“I don’t think the law covers this. What can we do if you have such a beautiful mind and such a beautiful heart that you made us do a three-sixty in just two months.”

“But is it okay?”

“What do you mean?”

“Is it okay…with both of you?” Although his voice barely made a sound, his words were picked as carefully as secrets. He hoped they meant more than the philosophies San and Wooyoung fell in love with. It was against his principles, and he held himself culpable for thinking so. But the happiness that the others brought with them was addictive. The happiness of having the luxury to share a bed with them, to listen to their reading voices, and to have pairs of hands run through his hair as they rinsed it. Yeosang never knew those minute things contributed to his happiness. But now that in the eyes of two people he cherished so much he was seen as a _crush_ , the greed for more joy and happiness came rushing in.

“This is the first time we fell for the same person, actually.” San said, leaving an open silence at the end of his words. He looked at Wooyoung for approval, and the latter encouraged him to continue by squeezing his hand. “…We loved a guy before. But after months we realised that we weren’t in fact, in love with him. Only after that we learned the difference.”

Yeosang relaxed his shoulders, moving a tiny bit closer to them. They were both looking at San. “At one point there was another person with us.”

“Another person?” Yeosang tilted his head.

San nodded. “Yeah. In this relationship, I mean. There was a third person.”

“…Oh…Is that what people call an open relationship?”

“No.” San replied sharply, with a hint of irritation. Yeosang bit his tongue, ready to apologise even before San thought of continuing. “An open relationship is when you seek affection— or other things, from a person outside of your already existing relationship. We didn’t do that.”

“...I’m sorry. I don’t know why I said that.”

“It’s okay. It happens.” He pressed his lips together, then looked at Wooyoung one more time. “It was me who brought this up to Wooyoung first…I don’t know why, but I’ve always felt more comfortable having two people around me, rather than one. I think my mind saw this as having my own family, my own little group of people whom I can love in every way there is…Before Wooyoung and I started dating actually, I knew I had to tell him this,” he paused and puffed out a laugh. “And by whatever miracle, he felt the same way. But was still in the first phases of discovering this.”

“And then….you guys welcomed another person in?”

“Yeah. He had no experience in this type of relationship. Which was fine, because neither did we. Whether you have one or two other partners, the same rules apply. You gotta be in the same headspace, otherwise you’re not gonna work out. There has to be a spark, and a wish to discover a person, and the members of the relationship have to share the same goals too. And this guy…didn’t have the same goals. This kind of relationship is not for everyone, and that’s cool. But in this case…the breakup with this guy was the beginning of the series of events which led to us running away from there.”

“Really…” Yeosang held the back of his hand over his mouth. “So this was at the beginning of the year.”

“It was. He had some things going on, but he felt safe around us. We shared a lot. But he shared more with us because he always had so, so much to vent about. And because we loved him, we tried to help. But then…I’m not sure how or when it happened, but he tried to shift this relationship into some sort of hierarchy. Which was a huge ‘fuck no’ for me. I can’t do that. I was quick to notice how he tried to turn Wooyoung and I against each other just so we would seek his attention instead. And from where it went downhill. We introduced him to our parents as a classmate at first just to see if they’d like him, and he went livid. My parents didn’t even know about Wooyoung yet. And he threatened us with stuff like ‘If you won’t tell your parents about us, then I will’. And it kept going on like this.”

“We ran away, Sani,” Wooyoung told him, and San looked at him like he didn’t know what he was talking about, then gasped when he remembered.

“Oh, yeah. We left again. But on the other side of town. We cried there and we cried on our way back. It was such a shitty time. It went like this until February. Wooyoung and I came up with this idea to fake an argument in front of him, because we thought he would have the decency to get involved and tried to stop it. But he didn’t. He was enjoying it. When we made up, I went back home and thought about it. And this guy,” he pointed at Wooyoung “Had a fight with him. Behind my back.”

“I couldn’t sleep. I had vivid scenarios about the breakup in my head, that I ended up dreaming them time and time again the same night. There were mornings when I would wake up relieved that we broke up with him. But we didn’t. It was hurting me to fight with San, even if it was all staged, and the fact that the guy was waiting for something to happen to us made me lose it. I told him that I don’t give a fuck about what he wants to do and that he can tell my parents anything. I broke up with him and I told him ‘I’m not letting you see San either.”

“The shitstorm of missed phone calls and messages and voicenotes I woke up to that morning…” San sighed.

“Guys,” Yeosang intervened, although he felt guilty to. “You don’t have to tell me everything. I don’t need every detail to know that this person should have been gone the moment he turned you against each other. Whether someone is a partner or a friend…if they make you want to put your safety at risk, then this tells me enough…So if you’re struggling to remember things that your mind’s been trying to repress…Don’t. It’s fine. If it makes you sad, then I don’t want to know.”

He’s never asked anything of them. From helping around the house to revealing even the basic thing about them. He’s never asked a thing. If they wanted to remain strangers to him, he would have let them. If they wanted to play poets, lay out their life, then disappear into the world, he would have let them. But they chose to stay, and to entrust him with such a great deal of their lives that Yeosang started to believe it would have all been easier if they remained strangers. But they weren’t. They were two people whom he knew a lot about. Too much. More than he knew about himself. He knew their sleeping habits better than he knew his own. He knew what they dreamt about from only looking at their morning faces. “Your present and your future are more important to me than your past.” Brave words like those were never tailored for his naturalistic mind, but when they sat in front of him, he wanted to paint himself as the image of the book they read so fervently. Because even if he was not going to see them tomorrow, he wanted to know that they went back home with a light heart.

And as they mused on him, stunned at how smoothly he displayed the tenderness of his heart, Yeosang approached them steadily. Brave actions like those weren’t tailored for his body either, but he was a naive little thing who believed in more good things than bad ones. He held them both close, wrapping his arms tightly around them. Their natural scents were gone and their skin was rougher, but maybe his felt the exact same way. “If you feel this way about me, it’s okay. I don’t mind. In fact. I,” he sighed his doubts out “I guess it makes me happy.”

“It does? Really?” Wooyoung murmured with his lips against Yeosang’s shoulder.

“Yeah. The fact that after someone betrayed you like this you’re still able to trust and love another person…although you haven’t completely healed,” he paused as he felt two arms envelope around him tenderly “Might sound silly, but I’m glad that person is me.” He hugged them tightly one last time before breaking out of the embrace. “Use me. Use me to heal.”

Somewhere there was a way to express how they would never think of him as a tool for their wellbeing, but when they looked at him, drinking in his existence like the fields drank sunlight, words became a thing of the past. He played an essential role in every time they laughed genuinely, in every time they woke up before the sun without groaning and sobbing, ready to harvest the crops. Yeosang was not a tool that could make someone happy. He was someone with the power to make one happy. “If you said that to us at the beginning, maybe. But now you’re above all that.” Wooyoung said, carding his hand through Yeosang’s hair.

It was a feeling that Yeosang had grown accustomed to. It was gentle and tender in the right amount for him to enjoy without feeling guilty. However, his mind was quick to erase the memory of the feeling to protect him from ever longing for it. Every time they touched his hair or his cheeks, it was like the first.

But in that moment, when he awoken to find himself lying his head on Wooyoung’s chest and his legs across San’s lap, he closed his eyes and, with a smile he spoke to the voice in his head: _It’s okay, let me remember. It’s okay._ San’s hand gently laid on his thigh, just under where the towel covered him. Although his hand was almost still, with only his thumb caressing his skin, Yeosang felt something much warmer coming from him. Something like a wave of energy similar to when two people desperately wanted to kiss, but couldn’t because of the circumstance. He could feel San’s wish wander ceaselessly, and the slight looks that he and Wooyoung exchanged before looking back at him like he was a treasure. Somehow their eyes sparkled when they looked at him, and yet not a word was spoken at first. His heart skipped a beat when Wooyoung kissed his head, and he never thought he could be more aware of how his arms were wrapped around him. “Should we go?” He asked, looking at San while caressing Wooyoung’s chest with the back of his finger. There was more than one implication behind his suggestion. Things were about to happen and they needed to be unfolded to perfection in a place where no sky and no moon would would steal glances.

“I knew we were gonna have this conversation, but I’ve never thought it would be like this.”

“Wet? On a dock?”

“No. Naked.”

“Oh. Well it was symbolic. We shared secrets. We shared hardships. Naked. I expected this from us, but I never thought you would.”

“Yeah…Didn’t think I would either.”

It was like they reached the implicit decision of rushing home to their comfort place and continue indulging in each other’s being as if their days together were numbered.

Which they were. Any day starting from tomorrow they could break the news to him. However Yeosang was more afraid of them not wanting to return than them leaving. He could smell their addiction to comfort and clean conscience in the air around them. Air that became opaque with substance— with the voices and faces of two people that have been consuming his dreams for a summer now.

They washed each other’s hair when they arrived home, and it was only that until Wooyoung dunked a whole bucket of lukewarm water down Yeosang’s back. Then they turned every light off and bathed in the moonlight while discussing the homoerotic landscape they accidentally painted. It was a word that Yeosang hasn’t heard anyone say to him before. He didn’t participate in the discussion as much as he did other times as he didn’t have much experience, but although the subject began as a joke, they raised some good points that answered some of Yeosang’s questions. “How ‘bout you, though?” Wooyoung asked. “We’ve never asked you. You into guys? Girls? Both? Neither? Everyone?”

Yeosang blindly patted the ground in search for the bucket which was already half empty. He poured everything over his head as he held his breath, wrung the excess out of his hair, then searched for his towel. “I’m into…anyone who won’t rush me like _city folk_ do.”

“You’re saying you don’t like us now?”

“…I guess you’re an exception. You’re the only _city folk_ I can stand…But I don’t know, you can tell I’m not too keen on the subject. I guess the better answer is ‘I don’t care’. You’ve opened my eyes to the world of attraction, so now I suppose I’ll dedicate more time to it.”

As San opened the door, Yeosang crouched down to welcome Peony in his arms. She loved water too much for him to trust her around buckets and puddles. She was also not allowed to sleep inside the house, but after they picked her up from her sheep babysitter, she would cry when put down. “I’m slightly surprised. I thought you had yourself under control.”

“Nah.” Yeosang said from the other room. He threw on a pair of shorts and a tank top, then returned with a damp cloth to clean up Peony’s hooves. “There’s things I forget to think about. Like a secure relationship. Or fashion sense. Or an active social life. Or not dedicating enough time to reading. Y’know, _city folk_ stuff.”

“I was waiting for that.”

“Were you, though?”

“Yeah. Your love for _city folk_ is almost contagious. But I bet you’re a city guy at heart too.”

Yeosang scrunched his nose in disgust at the memory. He left the topic inconclusive and went to bring the hair dryer, then he sat San down and started combing through his hair before drying it properly. Wooyoung already assumed his spot on the right side of the bed, scrolling through his phone with Peony snuggled to his shoulder. She was still awake although her eyes were droopy, but she was absorbed in the dynamic colours and images on Wooyoung’s phone. When she couldn’t understand what was going on anymore, she sighed and closed her eyes, falling asleep with the tip of her nose underneath Wooyoung’s pillow. It was his turn to dry his hair, but now he did not have the heart to move. Eventually Yeosang made her a little bed beside theirs and transferred her as gently as he would hold a baby, rubbing circles on her forehead with his thumb until she fell back asleep. “I should probably go too,” he said, covering his mouth with the back of his hand as he yawned.

“Sleep here.” Wooyoung rolled onto his side, caressing the conveniently empty space in the middle of the bed.

Things were at work inside Yeosang’s heart. Too many things. The voices inside his mind, and the entities who stole his memories now had bodies and intelligences of their own, and were now building citadels around his chest. Forces and feelings were at work to prevent Yeosang from hurting. If he closed his eyes, the hardwood flooring became the docks, and the crispness of the air sent his mind to a verdant place where they became prey to the melodies of songbirds. And if he closed his eyes, the coldness of the blue bedsheets could have been water, for his lungs already flooded with the sensation of never respiring again. He breathed like he had to remind himself to. He breathed like drunkards did when _just one more was not enough_.

_No, let me remember. It’s okay. If I remember, it means it happened. And I wanted to happen. If it feels good or if it hurts. Let it happen. Let me feel something,_ he begged his mind’s voice.

The room was dark and travelled by lost wisps of cold. Only their feet were covered, and their arms bore the warmth of each other’s bodies. Wooyoung’s head was on Yeosang’s right shoulder, and his arm around his waist. When Yeosang lifted his arm to adjust his pillow, San saw the perfect opening to position himself in the way of a hug, leaning his head on Yeosang’s chest, giving him no choice but to wrap his arm around his shoulder. “Ya’ jealous?” He poked his tongue out at Wooyoung, although he smiled.

To prove San’s point, Wooyoung threw his leg over Yeosang, slightly tilting his entire body towards him. He froze when Yeosang caressed his cheek with the back of his finger. “Tell me what you want? I’ll give it to you.”

Wooyoung stared at his lips as he spoke. The gentle rasp in his voice. His lips of a pink so raw. With his entire being Wooyoung wanted his arms around him, but through a glance, he consulted with San, then lifted himself up, turned the lamp on, and picked the book up from the nightstand. “Read?” He chose his duty to the world instead of his wellbeing.

“Sure,” Yeosang tapped San’s shoulder to urge him to untangle himself, but at first he refused to move out of his comfortable position. But he too had a duty to the world.

Yeosang opened the book to the page the bookmark was at, then San pointed at the quote he last read. Clearing his throat, Yeosang smiled, bracing himself. He may have had a nice reading voice, but he surely had no right intonation or pacing. San and Wooyoung both retreated to their pillows like two little boys ready for a bedtime story. In its essence, that what probably what it was, but in a more contemplative sense. Yeosang sighed, blinking the fog out of his eyes. “ _Only when we are hurt do we think of someone whom we have hurt and feel true remorse,_ ” he read slowly like he knew they liked, although the quote was short and simple at first glance. He hummed to himself. “…That’s true,”

“If you’re someone with common sense, that is.” San said.

“Yeah. This sounds like a simple feeling, but it’s worded out well. Why do we do this? Why do we spend so much time trying to understand the world around us, but not ourselves?”

“Because people are more likely to believe in things they can see. We can’t see feelings, but we can see people who made us feel a certain way. So we try to fix them instead. That’s why when we’re in pain, we think of the person we hurt. We always need a face.” Wooyoung explained as he rolled over, lying completely on his stomach, with the coves in between his thighs.

“Baby, I’m so proud of you.” San reached his hand over to hold his, but they met halfway through on Yeosang’s chest. “Look at you being critical.”

Yeosang gave him a praiseful smile, squeezing both their hands. He then flipped the page, holding in a breath for half a second when he saw the bigger quote. “ _The end of a relationship reveals what we are made of. Move away, just one step, from your stubbornness and anger. That one step is more significant than ten steps when things are fine. It will diminish your pain and rescue you from insanity._ ” He read the last sentence much slower than the rest, reminiscent of their talk. “This is an interesting take because in your case the anger was your step away.”

“Yeah. It was. All that anger I saved up through University paid off. This right now is the step away.”

Yeosang agreed with a hum, holding the book with one hand, resting the other on top of where the other two held hands. He read the quote once more in his mind to memorise it before moving on. “ _The heart is slower than the mind. The mind knows you must part ways, but your heart does not. This is because you feelings are settled deeper in your heart_.” There was a blank line in between the paragraphs. A space meant for contemplation and a new breath. “ _When one day, after many days of disappointment, your partner deals the final blow, the light finally dims in your heart_.” Another blank space followed, but Yeosang chose not to let them acclimate to those words, so he continued: “ _Fallen ginkgo nuts are like a failed relationship. Once so lovely hanging from the tree, they emit a stink as they are crushed underfoot. Be gentle in ending a relationship as you were in starting it_.” He peeked at the first words of the following paragraph, then looked at San and Wooyoung’s faces to check if he can continue. Their cheeks were buried in their pillows, eyes empty as if they stared into space. He didn’t like being in between them. He lied his hand on top of theirs which seemed to spark a minute reaction from both. “I’m not sure what to make of this silence.” For the time being, he put the bookmark back in and set the book aside.

“Sorry, I was,” San pondered, flipping over to lie on his back “I was dissecting what you said. But I didn’t apply to a romantic relationship. This is bad, but I don’t think everyone is deserving of gentleness. And I mean this as objectively as I can.”

“Humans are caustic creatures. Or at least the two of you are.” Yeosang looked at the ceiling as he spoke, but he smiled when he felt he sear of Wooyoung’s stare onto his face. He opened his arm, inviting Wooyoung in.

“You say I’m caustic after all the times you praised me for being calm?” San masked his offence in the form of a tease, tilting his head towards Yeosang. There was no word fit for how complete he felt when he saw the way Yeosang was holding Wooyoung. It was a form of happiness so primordial and small, but with the power to create a new universe.

“I’ve seen you both almost getting angry. I can tell you’re both scary. That’s where the caustic agent lies.”

“What about you, then?” Wooyoung asked. Sleep strained itself to take him.

“I would be…water. Maybe rain. To cool you _city folk_ down.”

Within milliseconds, a silent sound like that of a ticking time bomb murmured at Yeosang’s ear. He gently sled the book out of his way, and as he did, he calculated time and distance from there to the door before the others would catch onto his remark. He was quick enough to lift his body up from the bed before he was shrouded by the arms of nymphs and into deepwaters when his lungs were empty. His eyes fell closed when his back hit the bed again. They were cold, muted blue, and smelled like salt. He was met with gentle laughter echoing in corners depraved of sound, and arms holding him so tightly that the sensation of drowning into something has never felt so pleasant. San took his hand to lift him in a sitting position, tucking his hair behind his ear. “Sorry. That was too rough. We play like that sometimes.”

“No, it’s okay. I know.” He blushed, looking down at how close San’s knee was to his thigh. He was above him, on his knees, and if he was to sit down, he could straddle him. That strand of thought alone made Yeosang aware of the volatile nature of his heart. He leaned into Wooyoung— for support, his mind fooled him, tipping his head back until it fell onto his shoulder. His breath hitched when he felt his arms around him, a sensation that no sliver of want would ready him for it. The many times he imagined himself being with them like that were a first draft compared to how it felt to experience it.

He felt the warmth of Wooyoung’s breath against his shoulder— an incendiary thing that no icy shiver would quench. Then something slightly rougher and cushiony travelling across the hill of his shoulder, then suddenly teeth pulling the strap of his tank top down. “So tell me, how are you gonna cool us down again?” Wooyoung’s lips wrote across his shoulder, whispering and shaped in a smirk.

“Baby, don’t tease him,” San chuckled softly, his hand travelling across the line of Yeosang’s neck and up to his jaw, then the pad of his finger landing on his earlobe. Through that touch, Yeosang heard him wondering why he never wore earrings.

A sweltering dew, like tears gathered on Yeosang’s eyelashes. The lamplight was as warm as harvest, sunsets, and sweet in colour as apricots, and all of those tasted vividly on the tip of Yeosang’s tongue. The taste of months as longevous as years, and the nights he slept alone. He grabbed Wooyoung’s wrist tightly, leaning further into him, tilting his head so he would face him and San better. With his other hand he reached to touch San’s face, but remained stranded in the air in shock as the question “Can we kiss you?” surged his way like the smoke of a wildfire. He may have been rain, but there was nothing to carry him. He was lighter than clouds.

San took his hand and held it against his own cheek. He kissed is palm, and with that, Yeosang entrusted the weight of his body into their hands alone. He felt his hands warm, until San’s lips burned him up to his wrist. If he was land, then those lips were tephra plume.

He nodded as San charmed his eyes into closing when he touched his lips. Beneath his eyelids he saw three silhouettes chasing the night through a forest, barefoot and muddy, their hair soaked and sticking to their skin. They ran with the wolves and the nightbirds, and laid their heads onto each other’s shoulder, falling into a sleep softer than on flower beds. San kissed him like he was putting him to sleep. He brushed their lips together and smiled before pressing forward again. He could feel the tremor of Yeosang’s hand against his chest, and before he kissed his lips again, he took his hand and pressed it against his heart. “Mind if we do a bit more?” His thumb outlined Yeosang’s lips as he smiled in a way that he only did with Wooyoung. Whether that was his way of coaxing him into something or not, Yeosang felt things when spoken to in that voice, and for that he shook his head naively. His eyelids dropped heavily with a sigh as Wooyoung glided his lips up his neck, pressing the first kiss right underneath his earlobe. Then he kissed his way back down, grazing his teeth along the tender skin, earning himself a sound like an involuntary sigh, a lewd sound repressed into innocence. As Yeosang’s lips remained parted with the sensory shock, San seized the moment and delved in for another kiss. It wasn’t enough for him to taste the words behind San’s smile, but the way he subdued himself when he would tilt his head for more spoke too clearly, as he wasn’t used to kissing someone so languidly.

Yeosang’s hand swam through Wooyoung’s wet, fragrant hair to anchor himself from slipping back into the surreal. Wooyoung was like a border, but this border was sea.

Behind his eyelids, the same vision appeared, but altered into a painting of them together on a bed of flowers, with sunlight flowing from the arms that undressed him so gently. It was dark and there was no one to see them. Yeosang lied back down onto the flower bed, arms opened and mouth shaping words so reckless that only his subconscious was graced enough to know. “Wait-” he choked out, holding his breath in. As the vision faded, he became aware of the dull sting on the right side of his neck, and the numbness across his lips. He grabbed the hems of his shirt and dragged it below his navel, folding is knee to his chest to further cover himself.

“Oh, you’re so cute,” Wooyoung murmured into the shell of his ear as he kissed his hair. “Were you that happy?” He trailed the tips of his fingers down Yeosang’s arm, resting his hand over his, but making no attempt to lift his shirt back.

Maybe through the last pages of the homoerotic guide there was a suitable answer to Wooyoung’s question. But it was a book that Yeosang has put down in favour of experience. He covered his eyes in shame, unable to convey an answer. San stroked his hair and kissed his forehead to soothe him, cooing words so sweet that made Yeosang’s heart flutter. At first he mistook the feeling for cringing, but the more he heard that voice, the more he melted into Wooyoung’s hold as uniformly as a snowflake. “You know we’re not letting you go until you kiss me too, right?” Wooyoung asked, stealing a first kiss on the cheek from him. He secured his arms around Yeosang’s waist, rocking him left and right to encourage him to reveal his face.

“You don’t have to,” Yeosang peeked over his fingers. His eyes were dewy and his cheeks were flushed. He looked in Wooyoung’s direction, not yet at his face. “You don’t have to let me go.”

“Oh, really,” the corners of his lips arched up in a feline’s smile when Yeosang leaned his head back on his shoulder, tucking his lower lip in to moisten it.

The weight of Wooyoung’s lips against his was one his heart was not prepared to carry. San kissed him like it was his first time, like he wanted to make a blissful memory out of a half-conscious state. But Wooyoung kissed him impatiently, like he wanted to sew the memory of his lips into Yeosang’s mind. If only his lips alone were enough. Underneath Yeosang’s tongue lied the days of summer that time could not claim. Despite Wooyoung’s wish to live through those days, to lie in bed and kiss the two like time was fiction, he kissed Yeosang once more, then again and again without parting his lips from his.

“…Keep going, I’m enjoying it.” San leaned back, supporting himself on his hands.

“Ew, creep.”

“You two look really hot like that. Don’t blame me.” The shadow of a blush dusted his cheeks. Maybe there have been ten people across history to feel the happiness he felt then and bother to invent a word for it. A word he was yet to stumble upon. Until then, he swallowed his needs and urges down and lied his head on Yeosang’s shoulder like they did before. “So who did it better? It’s gotta be me.”

“Are you trying to get kicked out?” Wooyoung retaliated with the speed of an involuntary reaction.

“Shh,” Yeosang patted is head, looping his arm around his neck. “Don’t fight. You were both good. I liked both. No one’s getting kicked out.” He said while kicking Wooyoung’s leg away from San’s side to avoid any further trouble. Wooyoung clicked his tongue, then turned around to check his phone for the second time that day. Yeosang glimpsed at the time displayed on the screen, smiling to himself when he saw it was one minute left until San’s birthday. He offered to switch places so he would lie in the middle, to which he received no objections. Two minutes into midnight, Yeosang’ found out that San knew how to take advantage of his birthday rights. No one was allowed to prove him wrong or to bicker with him, and he was to receive hugs and smooches without him having to demand any.

It was a conversation that Yeosang passively participated in, flicking his eyes from one to the other, smiling at their every tentative to start bickering. They mocked each other’s voices and threatened to push each other off a cliff in the severest tone. If he didn’t know they loved each other to the point of adoration, he would have thought they were serious.

San’s chest was not comfortable to rest on. His collarbones were as sharp as spikes and the surface of it was as hard as concrete, but the sensation was saturated enough for him to remember it. When all the lights went off and the room fell quiet although they were alone, Yeosang drew his lower lip in, walking the tip of his tongue across it. There was a certain sweetness to it. A scented lip balm or apricot juice. As abundant as the last drops stuck to the walls of a glass. The kind that deceived the tongue into wanting more. He bit his lip, pressing his forehead into San’s chest although it hurt him. Then he lifted his head and kissed them both again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hii, thank you for your patience ♡  
> Last chapter soon!


	3. The City of Lighthouses

In his sleep Wooyoung memorised the exact hour and minute when that one sun ray would prick him in the eye and force him into waking up together with the birds. When that hour came about, he turned to face the wall and threw the bed sheet over his head. However, that morning a flicker of thought persuaded him into opening his eyes and checking his surroundings. The second he woke up his head started pounding. He remembered falling asleep on San’s bony shoulder, then rolling over like a stringless puppet onto his pillow. Beside him San looked like he had a fight with the bed sheets and the bed sheets won. His legs were spread, his arms were folded over his stomach, and the covers were crumpled over his face into such a high pile that Wooyoung wondered how the hell he was still able to breathe under there. They were alone in bed, and the door was closed.

He stood up and zombie-walked to the window as he kicked his slippers around in attempt to put them on, as the sleeping spell Yeosang put on them the night before still hasn’t worn off.

Yeosang was at the breakfast table working on something that Wooyoung couldn’t yet discern. No one heard him when he woke up. Sometimes the hardwood floor creaked so loud that it seemed to snap under the lightest weight, but somehow when Yeosang crossed the room there was no hint of footfall. And San proudly called himself a light sleeper. The more Wooyoung joked to himself that it was all part of Yeosang’s sleeping spell, the more genuine the thought became.

Before joining Yeosang outside, he took a quick trip to the bathroom to wash away the somnial dust from his eyes. Somehow by whichever law of the Universe, both Yeosang and San had the habit of throwing their clothes right next to the laundry basket or hanging the clothes by the towel rack instead of throwing it in like decent humans. That was on the list of his biggest pet peeves, but he found a certain level of endearment in the fact that they shared this habit. Even he was surprised by how much he loved them, to hold himself back from calling them out for it.

The memory of the previous night was something that he and San would have discussed and dissected until every move and every spoken word became a symbol for future dreams. He’s kissed San more times than days he’s been alive, but as he approached Yeosang to surprise him with a morning kiss, his heart suddenly became aphonous. He leaned in to kiss his cheek right at the same time when Yeosang turned around upon hearing him, and their lips met in the most tragicomical way. “Morning,” he played it off, distracting Yeosang from the blush on his cheeks by tucking his hair behind his ear just to make the poor guy even more flustered. “What are you making?” He peeked at the red powdery substance in the mortar, giving it a quick sniff. “Is that chilli powder?”

“Yeah. Want some?”

“I shouldn’t, but…Sure.”

Yeosang collected some on the pad of his finger, bringing it to Wooyoung’s lips, who barely touched it with the tip of his tongue before he began his coughing fit. “Oh, that’s painful. You’re gonna kill someone with those.”

“I can’t handle spicy food either. But this isn’t for me.”

Spread across a canvas towel were more dried chilli peppers, and on the bench he sat on was a basket filled with them. Wooyoung wished he was asleep instead. “Selling this too?”

“These are for a small local business. They have their own line of spices and seasonings.”

“And you’re their supplier.”

“You could say so.”

“That’s pretty cool. You never talked about this.”

“Talking about money makes me uncomfortable. Sometimes you have to state how much you charge from the start, and when people refuse or call you out for expecting too much, you have to play it cool, although it’s so embarrassing. I hate it.”

“Ever thought about starting a business yourself?”

“And do what?”

“Everything you do here. I’m sure people would appreciate homemade things and minimally processed foods.”

“If you have no plans after University, then maybe we can think of something.” He held his breath and poured the powder into a bigger container before sealing it and taking it to the storage room.

The conversation took a turn that Wooyoung didn’t expect, but was most grateful that it happened. While he waited for Yeosang to return, he thought of hundreds of ways to break the ice to San about what happened. That moment and that specific second he’s been waiting for since the beginning of summer. That small thing to look forward to after graduating. The course of his life took a turn that not even is subconscious could have predicted it. And him, like a fool, thought he was the one to carry the weight of a decision. He looked at the window to their bedroom, head as blank and serene as an ocean was at the surface. “By the way,” Yeosang said, filling a gourd cup with water to wash off all the powered that’s gathered underneath his nails. “Are we letting birthday boy sleep in, or what’s the plan?”

When they were at that table, San usually sat to his right. Sometimes Wooyoung entered his ruminative state so profoundly that he became unresponsive in real life. Out of habit he looked to his right to ask San to handle it while he searched for his resolve. “Let’s go wake him up.”

San’s arm was hanging over the edge of the bed, his legs were spread somehow wider than before, and his shorts were almost falling off. He was cute with his squishy cheeks and the pout on his lips, but one could only wonder why he was frowning. Yeosang held a small piece of apricot against his lips, unsure how to proceed when San opened his mouth. He pulled the bedsheets over his almost naked behind as he chewed on the apricot. Then he opened his mouth for more. Confused but strangely entertained, Yeosang fed him another bite. “Is he really asleep?”

“Nah, he just likes the attention.” Wooyoung sat down at the foot of the bed, highly tempted to tickle San’s feet.

As if he felt the mischievous energy of his intentions, San flipped over on his back, grabbing the wrist in which Yeosang held the apricot to make sure he wasn’t running anywhere with it. “Oh to be woken up like this every morning.”

“Too bad it’s not your birthday more often. Get up. We have stuff to do,” he slapped San’s leg gently, then harder when he groaned in protest. “Mountains ain’t gonna climb themselves, you know.”

“…But you can climb me-” Wooyoung dropped whatever he was doing and threw himself over San, clapping both his hands over his mouth.

“No. Bad Sani. Bad.” But San was cackling underneath him.

☼

“You know what I just realised? That ever since we became closer, Yeosang stopped carrying weapons with him.”

“I never carried weapons with me. If foraging tools can double as murder weapons, that’s another story.” Yeosang said, casually flipping the pruning knife and safely catching it by the handle.

“Oh, and speaking of when we’ve met, can I tell you something that we’ve been meaning to tell you since we’ve met? Now that we’re friends, I feel like I can afford to tell you.” Wooyoung said while he stopped to retie his shoelaces.

“My heart is telling me to say no, but…”

“Everything you do is so attractive. Like when you say ‘I’ll carry that, don’t worry’. Or when you instantly know what’s broken and how to fix it. Or when you don’t have that one specific tool, you just…make one from scratch simply because you can. And the face you make when you’re focused. And the way you roll your sleeves up when you’re about to do something labour intensive, although nobody asked you to do that labour intensive thing.”

Whining in embarrassment, Yeosang hid behind San, burying his face into his shoulder blades. “…Please tell him to stop.”

“No. Let him finish. I have things to add.”

“Don’t add anything. Please. It’s not like that.”

“Yeah it is. You’ve been spoiling us, and you haven’t been that subtle about it. I think you’re the only person I’ve ever met whom I’m scared to tell what I want, because you’re gonna do it right away. Sometimes you just gotta accept that being kind is part of what makes you attractive.”

“I’d rather you tell me about things that _don’t_ make me attractive. Less pressure.”

Wooyoung thought for a brief moment. “Oh I have one— You don’t play with us.”

“I do play with you. I’m playing with you right now. But wait, is this something that makes me unattractive, or something that you specifically dislike?”

Wooyoung clicked his tongue, ignoring the question until the subject changed. “He needs a lot of attention. He’s baby.” San said, making no effort to lower his tone. But he received no objections from Wooyoung.

“Oh? Is that why you don’t give him any?” Yeosang gently elbowed him, looking at Wooyoung who was still sulking.

“Yeah, he’s annoying.”

Wooyoung sighed. “Will you two ever stop antagonising me…”

San laughed. “You’re fun to tease,” he leaned in to kiss his cheek, but Wooyoung whipped his head the other way. “You can’t get mad at me today, it’s my birthday.”

In an ideal time Yeosang would have promised to play with them in the future, but lately the subject of the curtailing future was like treading on thin ice. It was a common fear they shared, one that peaked when they were together. When they were alone, clocks didn’t tick, high tides went still, and the sun spun around itself. But even in the present moment as they were walking the path up the mountain, they climbed higher than they had agreed on, for the world always accommodated them. If they asked for forever, the world gave them the illusion of it.

They laid the blanket in a space away from sunlight and finally indulged in the snacks they forbad each other from eating on the way there. They finished their water supplies even before they settled down, and Yeosang, being the kindest friend and host and who-knew-what-else-he-was, went to the river to refill them.

“Sani…How do you feel?”

“Why the serious tone, though?” He crushed the watermelon cube against the roof of his mouth, tipping his head back at the surge of flavour that rained across his tongue. “I’m fine. I’m happy.”

“No, I mean,” Wooyoung looked downcast, plucking a flower whose stem bent under the weight of the blanket. He twirled it between his fingers before picking the first petal. “About…this.”

“You mean…him?”

“Yeah.” He sighed. San would usually know what the blush on his partner’s cheeks meant. Wooyoung’s mouth often spoke before any other part of him that stored emotions. He would speak up about what he loved the most even before his mind and heart knew. But in that moment he blushed so innocently that San didn’t know what to do with him. “Is he…?”

Nor did San know what to do with that look in his eyes. It was hopeful, and yet not quite. “I don’t know…is he?”

Wooyoung frowned. “I don’t know, idiot, I’m asking _you_. How do you…feel?”

What Wooyoung was asking of him then was for him to think with his brain instead of his heart, which hadn’t occurred to him until then how difficult it became. He felt like old people did when they were forced into a life of technology. “Recently I realised that,” he threw the watermelon rind into the plastic bag and wiped the corner of his mouth with his knuckle “No one’s ever said ‘I cherish you’ in as many ways as he did.”

Wooyoung was about to take a first sip of his drink, but he used every conscious fragment in him not to drop the cup and throw himself down the slope. “That’s just what makes it more difficult, I guess.”

“It is. Yeah.” San took his hand, holding it firmly. “Let’s wait until we meet next time. I think the time we’ll spend separated will tell a lot more.”

As he picked the last petal, Wooyoung nodded. He blew the petals away from his palm, disappointed to see how they fell right back onto his lap. The winds weren’t in his favour that day.

Yeosang returned with his pockets filled with wild strawberries, and a handful of flowers, and on the hand in which he held them was a black and blue butterfly. He held his arm up in the air as he set the water bottles down, but when he attempted to take the flowers in his other hand, the butterfly flew away. The look he gave the insect as it drifted away from him was no less than heartbreaking.

“I was wondering you why it took you so long.”

“He sat on my hand while I was picking the strawberries and I didn’t wanna bother him.” He said as he gave the fruits a quick rinse, throwing them into the empty slot of his lunch box. Then he took the small bouquet of flowers he picked and shyly gave it to Wooyoung. “…You said you wanna…put them in my hair.” His eyes dropped down to his lap as he spoke, realising it sounded less embarrassing in his mind.

Eyes still with surprise, Wooyoung accepted the bouquet with both his hands as if it valued more than his life.

Unable to bear the weight of the others looking at him, Yeosang turned around and untied his hair. He never knew what it was like to have his skin kissed by someone’s eyes, and his hair by someone’s hands. By the gentleness of the hand running through his hair to smoothen it, he knew it was San. As he stared at the travelling clouds he remembered how on the same day he’s met them at the bus station, he thought about cutting his hair. And many times after that. Until one day when they complimented his hair. Yeosang didn’t remember which day or even which month that was. It might have been an evening after he washed his hair and he made the mistake of letting it air dry and it became all wavy and bothersome. It was the first time someone else has ever brushed his hair. And the thought of him cutting it has never occurred again.

“Can I ask you one thing?” Wooyoung said. His voice blended within the natural; it became part of the landscape Yeosang always woke up to. He tilted his head and nodded. “Is there a reason you don’t like talking about yourself?”

Yeosang held back a smile although the others couldn’t see. “I don’t know. You guys are more interesting than me, so I prefer listening. But if there’s something you want to know, you can ask.”

A pensive silence followed which made Yeosang wonder if it was because they had no questions, or if they had too many. He understood the feeling. He was able to describe them to a stranger to the smallest detail, and understood their minds based on the dreams they’ve had, but upon thinking he also had no questions. He loved the ongoing journey of discovering them.

“What was your life like before you moved here?”

Yeosang felt the soft caress of the flower’s stems braiding together with thin locks of his hair. He could not afford to close his eyes to remember places and moments, as his mind would slip into bad places. “Plain. I was that secondary character who gets no backstory because of how monotone his life is.”

“Really? You’ve always given me the impression of the popular kid.”

“No.”

“He’s lying.” San was quick to dismiss. “I have a feeling you were that cute and mysterious guy who always got good grades and received lots of love letters. Come on, tell me I’m wrong.”

“…No. You’re not wrong. But I wasn’t popular. Just some people liked me for whatever reason. I don’t have any memories from that time. The only pictures I have are the ones grandma kept. The rest are at my parents’ place…if they haven’t thrown them away that is.”

“Why would they throw them away?”

“I don’t know. Lack of storage space or something.— Can we change the subject?” He said on a surge of bravery he didn’t know he owned. He liked them enough to let his guard down around them, but he hadn’t yet erased the line of transparency. There were still things he couldn’t say so he won’t hurt their feelings.

He turned around when the hands withdrew from his hair and was met with San’s empathetic smile. He hooked the last blue flower behind Yeosang’s ear and cupped his face, caressing the apples of his cheeks with his thumb. Yeosang held his breath as San kissed him. “We’ll talk about whatever you want.”

Still high in his euphoria, Yeosang nodded. “Okay,” he said with a sigh, falling light as fluid while San manoeuvred him into his arms, with his head against his chest and his legs across Wooyoung’s lap. He’s been through that before, and it was competing for the first place on the list of best things that have ever happened to him. That, and the day he’s met them. Not the moment, but the end of that day when he became sick with how much he’s laughed. And the day before as well— the lake in the moonlight, their wet and bare skin, their giggles and hot lips. “I think I get it,” he smiled, more to himself, his eyes on Wooyoung’s bare arm, and his hand against his knee “The thing you told me yesterday,” he lifted his head and looked at both of them. Their golden skin from all the hours they spent in the sun, their dark hair that had grown almost as long as his, and those godly lips that he will have never kissed enough. He wanted to understand things like they did, like the cruel words meant as teasings, and the entire spectrum of language they made for only each other to understand.

“What thing?”

It was a language that Yeosang never wanted to learn, but he understood most of. He knew how to read secrets in their language of love, but even when it came to that he pretended not to understand. As Yeosang thought of this, he was reminded of the partner they once had. Someone with no name or face, but a bad person whom Yeosang instantly portrayed in his mind.

“About the kind of relationship you have,” he touched the flower at his ear, smiling at how Wooyoung gripped his knee tighter. If only Yeosang loved him enough to afford to kiss his fears away. “It’s like…You have so much love in you that you can love two people equally, right?”

His heart yearned for the kind of love they had for each other, but the title that time and the world have bestowed upon him was the only person in the world who had the ability to heal them. “Yeah,” San said, kissing his forehead “It’s just like that.”

“It sounds challenging.”

“But if it’s not challenging, could you really call it love?” San shifted his eyes to Wooyoung, smiling even wider when he punched his arm.

“Why’d you look at me?”

“Because you’re the challenging part.”

“Why? Because I don’t think things through?”

San expected him to catch on in the following exchange of lines, but when it happened quicker than predicted, he patted Yeosang’s stomach and dragged his shirt like he rung the emergency alarm. “I could use your cool down skills now.”

But Yeosang only smiled fondly. It was not his problem yet. “Nothing to cool down here. San was right. We already agreed you two are the caustic ones.”

“So you’re saying I’m challenging too?” San trapped Yeosang’s nose between his index and middle finger, squeezing before releasing suddenly. “…I just proved your point, huh.”

“You did.” He sighed, scrunching his nose like a bunny to elevate the pain. “But if I don’t feel exhausted yet, it means you’re not challenging enough.”

“We’re giving you a few more months, then you’ll take that back.”

“Few months…” Yeosang trailed on, taking the flower from behind his ear and twirling it between his fingers. He didn’t know the name of it, but he knew it was the kind his grandmother would press between the pages of a book she’s read. With that in mind, he’s decided to keep it, along with all the flowers in his hair. “Who knows where we’re gonna be.”

“You said something about us starting a business this morning.” Wooyoung recalled, picking a bite-sized cherry cake from his lunch box and eating the cherry on top before the rest. He fed San the second one when he looked at him with confused eyes. “We touched on it while you were still asleep, don’t panic.” And forced the cake in his mouth.

“I meant that as a joke.” Sensing that the upcoming conversation would be different than the casual ones he usually had, Yeosang stood up and gathered himself at the same distance they sat from each other.

“Oh, so you don’t want us to? I was on board with it.”

“Making a living out of what I do here was my choice. It doesn’t have to be yours too. This isn’t the kind of life you were made for.”

“What kind of life were we made for, then? You think that just because we went for higher education we’re not allowed to not work anything else than what we study?”

“I just…I think there’s a lot more you could do. There’s a lot more that the world has to offer you than it has to offer _me_. And I want you to be in a place that makes you feel accomplished.”

San and Wooyoung shared a glance that he didn’t quite know where to place. He was on a two month streak of never having felt anxious in their presence, but that millisecond look was like a basic word in their language that Yeosang hasn’t learned yet. And he suddenly wished he was fluent.

“…I can’t tell if you’re saying this because you don’t want to be with us or-”

“I’m gonna stop you right there because that’s not true. I do want to. I do want to be with you. But more than I want to be with you, I want to know you’re doing something that makes you happy. That you have a job that pays a lot better and makes you fill fulfilled. I don’t,” he broke off right in time before stepping on the threshold to where his repressed memories lied. Snippets of memories and feelings buried deep underneath a mountain of imitations of confidence and better times. Lies in their rawest form was what they were, but he kept away from this word. There was no need to deceive himself if there was nothing to lie about. He was happy. This is the life he chose. “I don’t want you to end up like me.”

He took in a sharp breath, shivering as if the words were a blow he had to take from someone else. He blamed his stinging eyes on the winds. He was happy and that was the life he chose for himself, and yet the confession made him sick.

“If ‘ending up like you’ means having the enthusiasm to always learn something new, and having so many talents, then I want that. I want to be like you. I want to be as rich in culture, and as fulfilled as you are.” San picked the white flower that fell from Yeosang’s hair and onto his shoulder. He sensed it was not the right moment to approach him yet.

Yeosang felt their need to comfort him like a new taste on the tip of his tongue, and it took more than his lone self to refuse to. “What makes you think I’m fulfilled…”

“You said so. You’re the one who redesigned your garden. You’re the one who renovated the house and the courtyard. You make and grow everything you use and consume. You said this makes you feel fulfilled.”

“It’s like you’re calling us useless without actually saying anything. But I’m glad. I’m glad to be called useless by you.”

“I’ve never called you useless.”

“No, but think about it. When you first saw us, we made zero effort to make our situation better simply because we weren’t familiar with the area. We sat there and. Cried.”

“And remember when we harvested the crops— I mean, you did, and we tried to help you, like the poor _city folk_ we are, and then you politely went ‘Don’t hurt your pretty hands, I’ll do it’. That day you called us useless in a nice way. And I’ll take that. Because it’s true.”

“And he made us bring him water just to make us feel less useless.”

“Yeah. It felt so nice to be needed.” Wooyoung sighed, wiping a nonexistent tear. “See? Don’t say ‘end up like me’ as if it’s something bad. I admit— and I hate myself for saying this, but I’ve been sheltered most of my life, and there’s a lot of basic things that I’ve never learned how to do. Like…ride a fucking bike or learn how to stay afloat. I’ve learned more in a summer here than I’ve learned in University. And that’s something I pay for…Aren’t you the one who said that life’s not about that? Why are you going back on your word now?”

“I’m not going back, I just don’t want to be an influence. I know how important it is for you to feel fulfilled. That’s why you came all the way here, right? And I’d feel bad if you didn’t achieve that. So please think about it. Both of you. There is time.”

“What about you, though?”

“What about me?”

“What do you have in mind? Or what do you wanna do?”

“I’m not going anywhere. I’ll keep…doing what I’ve been doing. Something in my mind is telling me that this is the end of the line for me, although it’s not true. I don’t want you to feel this way, because it’s not a good feeling.”

Yeosang was the first person they’ve ever met to fake unhappiness as desperately as hiding evidence. From himself as well as from the world. He build himself a place so serene and out of a fairytale, that it fooled people into believing that it was a reflection of him. Yeosang always took them to beautiful places to distract them from himself in case he would slip.

Those were the first lines of a theory that San unearthed, and it lied in his mind as vaguely as the first seconds of a dream. Hanging by such a weak strand of memory that he could not even tell Wooyoung about it yet. “You know…in an ideal world, everyone would have dreams like they do in the movies. Everyone would be so strongly driven by aspirations. And we do. We all do. Until we realise that we can’t skip to the next scene five years later when we have it all. The thing you said about people who come from the city. I’ve been thinking about it since, and you’re right. We’re shamed if we’re not active members of society. We’re all scared of this ‘end of the line’ you mentioned. But there is no end of the line. Or if there is, someone else set it for us. But it’s not there. When we left home, we thought it was the end of the line for us. But it was this thought, this stupid thought that we have it all that kept us from breaking down,” his lips remained parted and uncertain, his eyes on the waves that the winds drew through the grass. “I don’t know if you know this, but I have no dreams. I’m not sure what’s next for me. I hate the passage of time. I was never given enough to think. But if we reach a point where we trick ourselves to think we’re stuck, then…maybe we are. And I can confidently tell you that you’re not stuck. Do you want me to tell you why?”

Yeosang swallowed heavily. He did not want to know. “…Why?”

“Because you have nothing to run away from anymore. I know you’ve been running away from things— and it doesn’t even matter which things. But you’re here now. And you’re okay. You don’t have to run anymore. The world you showed us is beautiful, and I’m glad we saw it together. But you’re part of this world too. I don’t know if you noticed, but you mean a pretty big deal to us.”

A petal brushed the shell of Yeosang’s ear like a pair of lips. It was almost as cold as it was in his room, and his cheeks burned as hot as they did while he kissed them. “I know,” he clenched his teeth, and for the first time in years, he searched for his courage in the right places. “You mean a lot to me too.”

Yeosang saw a blue flicker dash across his eyes, as a memory of how close he was to crying right then and there. But a confession like that was enough to feed his mind with so much air to breathe, that he felt nothing for the moments they spent in silence. Hearing the words roll down his tongue as smoothly as on ice was like rain over a fire. He did not feel his cheeks burning anymore, and his hands trembled like they did when rode his bike to new places, or when he jumped in water. They trembled like they did when he was held and kissed. He recalled the promise he made to himself that morning. To start gathering memories and moments the same way he garnered apricot seeds. To expand and grow something he could always go back to. And for that, when he became aware of the tremor in his hands, the adrenaline rushing through his palms and fingertips, he opened his arms and hugged them tightly. “Next time we meet, let’s talk about this again. Maybe I’ll understand you better.”

☼

Wooyoung scrolled through his gallery for a picture of his class he took that spring while waiting for San and Yeosang to finish their business at the flour mill. He sat inside a wheelbarrow with Peony on his lap, smiling at how much he had to search for the photo. He’s never thought he would ever see the day when he would have more pictures of Peony sleeping amidst flowers than of himself and San. He took pictures of almost every meal the three of them had together, of landscapes, of San and Yeosang working together, but not enough of the three of them.

He looked at the flour mill across the road. He didn’t know what was going on, but it was as loud as if someone was welding next to him. When the sound stopped he could hear San’s high pitched laugh, followed by Yeosang’s. When he saw them walking out of the mill covered in flour, Wooyoung puffed out a shameless laugh and took a short video of them dusting it off each other. But then San took an extra handful of flour within his pocket and made it snow over Yeosang’s head. Wooyoung pocketed his phone and gently set Peony down before bringing the wheelbarrow over to them so they could finally head home.

It was scalding that day. And the previous night was as well. So much that that they woke up at about the same hour, their mouths dry and their hairlines as wet as if after rain.

San wiped the sweat (and flour), off his temple with the hem of his shirt and prepared himself physically for loading the sacks of flour into the wheelbarrow. Wooyoung lifted his shirt again to take a look at his stomach. “You’re soaked,” he worried, then looked at Yeosang, who did not look any better than him.

Later on that day they both came down with a sort of heat illness that Wooyoung wasn’t sure what to name. He lied them both down in Yeosang’s room, much cooler and less illuminated than their bedroom. Their skin were flushed, they were shaking and were more or less nauseous. “Are you sure this isn’t heatstroke?” He asked as he scrolled through a medical website for the symptoms and home treatments.

“Naaah,” Yeosang flapped his hand up and down lethargically, probably to tell Wooyoung not to worry, but he’s lost direction halfway through. “Happens all the time…all the time. Iss’ okay.” He had an ice water soaked towel across his face which he pressed down with his other hand. “Iss’ okay, been ‘ere before. Juss’ give it a minute.” He lifted the towel, fanned his face, then flipped it over and dropped it back. “My heart’s beatin’ so fast.”

“Is that so,”

“Uh-huh. ’S ‘cause I’m here _wif_ you guys.”

“And definitely not because you’re having a heatstroke.”

“Is’ not a heatstroke. Though I do feel like a sun-dried tomato.”

“You do look like a sun-dried tomato-”

“Unseasoned.”

“Now that’s just awful.”

“It is.”

Wooyoung touched his forehead through the towel, withdrawing right away when he felt how warm it had already gotten. He peeled it off his face and soaked it in ice water again. “Sani, are you alive?”

“He’s meditating.” Yeosang whispered, poking San’s cheek. He hasn’t moved in the last minutes.

“Wake him up. He didn’t drink his water yet.”

“Please don’t,” San sobbed, searching for whatever in the air until he found Yeosang’s hand, and grabbed his forefinger. “The room is spinning a lot.”

“You gotta stay hydrated, though. Don’t play around. I’m already worried as it is.”

Yeosang dragged himself closer to him, then opened the fan above them both, fluttering it vigorously while Wooyoung changed the towels again. Mostly for fun, he picked an ice cube smaller than his pinkie’s nail and placed it on San’s forehead, unsure if the speed it melted with or the lack of reaction from him shocked him most. He took pity on him and wiped his forehead. “I’ll go…attempt to make lunch. Anything specific you want?” But the others only laughed in response, mumbling in the heatstroke-but-not-quite language about how they would throw up if they even try to stand up. “If you don’t say what, then-”

“Apricots,” it was the clearest San’s ever sounded that day.

“No.”

“Please.”

“No. You need food.”

“Can you at least pretend to love me?” San dragged the towel off his face, but regretted it instantly. He laid it back across his head and pressed it into his skin, wringing every drop of cold water left in it.

So Wooyoung brought them apricots.

It was a week after San’s birthday. It only started raining when they were on their way home, but somehow the sky has never felt so present. They pushed each other into the river and lied down in the freezing water, they rolled down the mountain slopes just because, and hell knew how they got lost in the forest. It was a verdant patch away from the hiking paths. They removed their clothes and laid them over the rocks to dry in the sunlight as they lied down on the blanket and held and kissed and tasted the apricot off each other’s tongue until their clothes became too hot to wear. Wooyoung took many pictures of them then. Some were for himself, while they kissed and laughed into each other’s skin, and some where just for the beauty of it, with their legs tangled on the grass, and skin over skin among flowers. Hours seemed to have passed, and the clouds went still.

Wooyoung reminisced over that day while waiting for the two to wake up. They each took a painkiller after they cooled down, and eventually dozed off. Wooyoung checked on them often, until he too fell asleep in his rocking chair. He dreamt of that same day in the mountains, of a moment when his eyes were also closed, and pairs of lips travelled all across his body. San kissed his navel and thighs, and Yeosang claimed his lips and tongue more shamelessly than ever.

They haven’t reached for each other as much since. Wooyoung wasn’t sure why. There was no tension in the atmosphere. It felt lighter than before, in fact. A part of Wooyoung felt that it was because they’ve reached a level of domesticity where they did not have to prove each other anything anymore. Kissing each other good morning and good night became something usual.

Wooyoung cracked his eyes open when the memory of that day ended, and looked at them again. Yeosang slept with his back facing San, and in a much sensible position. He did not take up much space in the bed, nor did he fuss around too much. San, on the other hand, was very defensive of his sleeping space in the bed, even while unconscious. He’d spread his limbs like a starfish and suddenly weighed hundreds of pounds when someone attempted to move him. He was a light sleeper, but he was selective about it. But what Wooyoung loved most about these two was that Yeosang never allowed him to cross the line. If San was getting to greedy in his sleep, then he would not hesitate to kick him back to his side of the bed. It happened one night when Wooyoung went to recharge his phone, and when he saw them, he laughed so loud that he woke them both up. Yeosang was so grumpy that he took his pillow and threatened to go to his room, but Wooyoung chose to sleep in the middle so that if San decides act up at least Wooyoung would suffer the damage.

From the other room he heard the notification ring on San’s phone, and he went over to set it on silent mode like he’s done for the past months. But when he picked up the phone he saw the preview of an e-mail from the University. And as he read this preview, he received the same e-mail on his own phone. His brain warned him to sit down before his knees would start buckling. He didn’t read the e-mails in the end. It was enough for him to know who sent them. There was a date, a form attached, and the words ‘Looking forward to seeing you’ somewhere at the bottom. Wooyoung closed his eyes and buried his face in his palms, looking for the right feeling he needed o check the date. He wasn’t sure what he needed. Bravery, maybe. The ability to let things go. The eagerness for confrontation he’s once had. Acceptance and adaptability. He didn’t know, so he picked up his phone and quickly read the date as his heart made up its mind.

He clenched his teeth, holding his breath. On the day after his birthday, San joked about how the countdown to the day they had to leave started. He went back to the other room in search for peace in their sleeping faces, and in the way San slept with his forehead against Yeosang’s back. He was yet to be elbowed awake.

Wooyoung said nothing for the rest of the day, even when the others repeatedly asked him if he was alright. He smiled and brushed it off each time. He did the same on the following day. And the following.

☼

“You know we have to talk.” San blurted the same moment he heard the gates close. He was impatient to not let any feelings catch up to him. He was the second one to wake up and was somehow able to maintain his mind and heart impartial. A part of him wished the burden would not fall onto his shoulders. Especially not after a night of reading to each other and falling asleep in the same old bed. “You can’t avoid this forever.”

“At least I tried.”

“…So you did it on purpose although you knew it was important.”

“…I didn’t know how to start…Nor did I want to. I don’t know what to do.”

“We…go back and do what we’re supposed to do. Just like we’ve agreed before. The three of us.”

“But do we have to go? Look at how well we’re doing. Things have been fine these weeks.”

“Is this what you really want? To stay here?”

“I don’t know what I want. I told you so many times. I don’t know. I know what I _should_ do, but I don’t know what I _want_.”

“Okay, then tell me about the things you know. How do you truly feel? You said you feel more at peace now, but it doesn’t look like you are.”

“Then why are you asking me?”

“Don’t get defensive now. I have to remind you these things. I have to push you although I don’t want to. Uni’s starting soon and you’re still indecisive. We have to send the course papers in. There’s things we have to do before classes start…Or, if you really don’t want to, maybe there’s a way to freeze the year.”

“I don’t want to go. I’m not ready. We could just stay here, Sani. We’ve been so busy, that we didn’t realise when weeks went by. I want more days like these.”

“…So you’re just gonna give up these three years? You’re gonna throw away all the money that’s gone into it? All the hours spent working? All the loans? Just because you’re mad at yourself?”

“Sani, I’m not happy anymore! What I do there doesn’t make me happy! I don’t want it!”

San cupped his cheeks, then dropped his hands down to his shoulders, then grabbed his arms firmly. “Look at me. I know you. I know that voice and I know that face. If I knew you less, and if I loved you less, I would let this go. I would let you stay here if it made you happy. But because I know and love you, I know that you aren’t thinking this through.”

Wooyoung looked away from him as soon as he started the last sentence, shaking himself free from San’s hold. “…You always say this. You always think I’m incapable of making big decisions.”

“No, you’re not incapable, you just suck at thinking about the consequences…Babe, it’s just one year. You can do this. It’s the final year. It’s not even a complete year, it’s just a few months.”

“But we can freeze the year-”

“No, we can’t.”

“But you said-”

“Yeah, I know, but if I think about it, it’s a bad idea. If you freeze your year, you won’t ever finish it,” he sighed, dragging his palm across his face. He barely slept the previous night, and yet he still had the energy to argue and debate. “Look, even if you won’t do anything with that stupid diploma, just make all these years worth it. Just get it over with. Please. I’m not letting you quit now.”

“…But,” Wooyoung turned around, sweeping a frustrated hand through his tangled hair.“But I feel like I’m finally _me_. I’m so close to- to getting myself together.”

“I know, baby, I know. But you’re strong. Even if you go back there, just hold onto everything we’ve done here. Let this be your comfort place. Even Yeosang said that we need to be separated for a while in order to have a clear image of what’s best for us. Why are you acting like we’ve never talked about it? After all the weeks we’ve spent comforting each other. And all the times he’s spent comforting _us_. You’re not just gonna throw all that away. Come on.”

“It was easier, then! Because we didn’t know when, or even _if_ we’d have to go. But now it’s all coming back. I was reminded of things I thought I forgot. I think there was a moment when I forgot where I came from, and I was happy.” He rubbed his eyes to trick them into not spilling tears, then turned around to face San again, lips parted and ready to continue. He stopped himself abruptly, ebbing the influx of words that came as inevitably as a tide. “Why are _you_ crying?”

“Because it’s not easy for me either.” His voice trembled, San smiled, embarrassed at his own lack of self control, although his mind was surprisingly stable. Deep down he knew Yeosang would laugh at him if he saw him cry. “I don’t want to go, but for now this is the best thing to do. And I find it easy to go because this…and Yeosang too, are my comfort place. I know I have a better place to go back to,” he flicked his tear away from his lash line and took a deep breath to recollect himself “I know we lived in this fantasy of…of being in a place ripped from the rest of the world. And there’s no one to blame for this. But we gotta remember that none of that was real. This is a place like any other place. It won’t go anywhere. Every memory we’ve made here. No one can take it from us. And Yeosang’s not a memory. So don’t think of him as if he is.”

Wooyoung took in a deep breath, held it in as he nodded, eyes closed, then released it all at once. “…Okay.”

They shared a kind of smile that was only associated with bad memories. The kind they showed to each other when the world was crumbling around them, but never to ruin as long as they held hands. They’ve smiled that way at each other too many times, but in that moment it felt relieving. If the time played out in their favour once, they were naive enough to believe it would happen a second time.

“Look,” San said as they made their way back into the house. He pointed towards the backyard, where the rabbits and Peony’s playground was. She was napping underneath the cherry tree, with two rabbits snuggled to her side, and a third one right underneath her chin. San leaned his elbows against the gate, his heart swelling at the scape of innocence painted in front of him, smiling even wider when he saw how quick Wooyoung was to take his phone and take a million pictures. “I think you have enough pictures for an album there.”

“Oh, I am getting an album just for these. You know the kind where you can write a few lines beside the photo? I want one of those.”

“Then we’ll get one. We’d have a lot to write.”

San shoved his hands in his pockets and made his way to the house, picking up the jug to fill it with water for the plants. He did not feel as comfortable knowing that the house was empty, but it was a different kind than the feeling they had when they were first left alone.

☼

They lied in bed, too gloomy to face the sun, staring in the distance, at the grape leaves swinging in the wind and scraping temptations in the window frame. In the early days of their summer, San would have perched over the windowsill to pick grapes, then climb back in bed and savour them with his eyes closed until the juice would sting his tongue like wine. But that day they did not seem very appetising. Neither did apricots. He rolled to his side to face Wooyoung, who could not have emptier eyes while staring at his phone.

Soon, they heard the front gate open, and before they had the time to register the sounds with how detached from reality they were, they saw Yeosang rushingpast their window and straight to the kitchen, carefully holding something in his arms. It was the first time he’s forgotten to check where they were first, but they did not think much of it. They collected themselves and went to check.

“Hey,” Yeosang smiled. He was perched up on the counter near the sink with a tea towel on his lap. The sink was half filled with water, and inside of it swam three ducklings. “Look who followed me home.”

“Again?” Wooyoung leaned his elbows against the edge of the counter, caressing the duckling’s fluffy back with the back of his finger, withdrawing it when the little one spread his tiny wings and fluttered them around like a hummingbird. “Someone needs to write a story about you.”

“It’s rather no one did.” He jumped down from the counter and unfolded the towel, making it into a little pocket to transport the ducklings into a bigger basin outside. “How was your morning? Something happened?”

The two exchanged a glance behind him, but then became a series of insistent glares as they wordlessly fought over who should break the ice. “Um. No.”

They followed him wherever he went, probably the same way the ducklings followed him home, carrying empty baskets for Yeosang to fill with things he picked up from his garden. He’s never been that determined to make lunch before. The two recognised that kind of behaviour as Yeosang’s work headspace, and unless they grabbed him and shook the adrenaline out of him, there was no point. In times like those, he’d talk to himself or ramble about the cities he’s built that morning. But in that moment, he was quiet. “This silence is not worrying at all,” he mumbled, wiping a cherry tomato against his shirt and popping it into his mouth.

There were twice as many rows of garlic and tomatoes than when they first arrived, and neither of them when they appeared there. It did not matter how early they woke up, Yeosang would still get it all done even before their dreams ended.

“We just,” San began, blissfully interrupted by Yeosang handing him an apricot, then moving on as if he didn’t melt a man’s heart just like that. San swallowed dryly, rolling the sun kissedapricot in his palm. It was as squishy as he imagined his heart would be. “We talked about when to go back home.”

Yeosang turned back around with his eyebrows raised and a cherry between his teeth. He ate it quickly, spitting out the seed into his fist, then launching over the fence, forgetting that he was supposed to keep it for next year. “Oh,” he studied their faces in silence, their heavy eyes so guiltily glued to the ground, and those lips which he forgot to kiss that morning. “Is that why you’re so sad about?”

The two shared another confused glance. San was the only one who believed they truly _had to_ go home, so Wooyoung dropped the responsibility of the conversation in his hands only. “Well, I…I mean, we’re pretty bummed out about it, and…you know.”

“Yeah, I am too, but we made a promise. In fact, we made made more promises. So eat your apricots and don’t worry about it. It’s gonna be okay.”

“How do you know?” Wooyoung looked away as he asked. He saw Yeosang coming his way, picking a cherry from the basket he was carrying, and holding it against his lips. And Wooyoung, because he was a weak man with a heart even weaker than the rest of him, parted his lips and took the cherry. The tip of his lips brushed against Yeosang’s fingers, and that alone felt sweeter than any ripe fruit.

“Because I trust you. And because this isn’t the end of the line for you. You have to go back and get a driver’s license so we can visit lakes and mountains next summer. When are you planning to go?”

Wooyoung shook his head, not bothering to reply, then looked at San. Yeosang could tell that San didn’t like his attitude towards the situation, but he could only hope they weren’t going to have an argument behind his back. Or any time in the future for that matter. “Next week, I guess” San said, and Wooyoung turned around and left.

San closed his eyes and took a deep breath, chanting self-soothing words in his mind.

“You’re not gonna fight, are you?” Yeosang worried, wanting to take the basket from San’s arms so he would go after and talk to his partner, but San didn’t let him.

“No. Don’t worry. We get like this when we can’t see eye to eye. We’ll be fine.”

Yeosang nodded uncertainly, then continued his walk through the little tree grove in his garden, too distracted to remember what else he came there for, or even to recall what he wanted to cook for lunch, but there was an entire side of the garden they haven’t walked through yet. “You said he lost his interest in what he’s doing now. Why is that?”

San leaned the basket against his hip, drawing the apple tree branches out of his way with the other hand. “We study economics. And at the beginning of the year he realised this isn’t what he wants to do. And at the beginning of last year he wanted something else. He wanted to study media. This year he wants to quit completely. But hasn’t said anything about media since…He’s always been indecisive. About everything. He has moments when he obsesses over something, and thinks about nothing else. He does this with items of clothing, colours, hobbies. Anything. He does a thing obsessively, and then drops it.”

Yeosang hummed, replaying his words in his mind, and trying to associate a memory with them, but he had no proof for himself yet. “Is that what I am?”

“What?” San understood the question perfectly, but it was the ‘I’ that shocked him the most. Yeosang was so quick to remove himself from the equation that they had to force him back. “No. Why would you think so?”

“I don’t know. I’m just asking if I’m only a ‘summer thing’.”

“Hey,” San tugged on his sleeve, lifting his hand to cup his cheek when he turned around. “You’re not. You’re nowhere near that. You know he wants you to come with us. He cares a lot about you, and he’s worried that you’re not happy.”

“I am happy. Tell him to make my life easier and worry about himself before he worries about me.”

“Why won’t you go tell him while I get started on lunch?”

“You sure it’s me he wants to talk to?”

“He’ll just say I’m stressing him out.”

“…Do you worry?”

“A doubt here and there. We’ve built a thing too beautiful for me to worry.”

Smiling sympathetically, Yeosang touched his hand, then pressed the back of his fingers against his lips in a timid kiss. “We did.”

When Wooyoung was sulking, he wanted the world to know. It was the type of thing that could easily irritate someone, but he’s always done it in a way that people became even more fond of him when he was being childish. He hid himself behind the fort of bed sheets and pillows, scrolling through his phone, away from every source of light. Yeosang peeked in, knocking at the doorframe first, but received no reply. “…You mind company?”

Wooyoung rolled over to his other side, eyes stubbornly stuck to his phone. “Did San send you to stress me out?”

“No,” he sat on the edge of the bed with his back facing Wooyoung. Their backpacks were in the exact same place as they’ve ever been, but they’ve gotten emptier by the day. Their stuff was all over Yeosang’s house, blending in so smoothly with the rest of the items that they were sure to forget something. “He doesn’t want to stress you out. He wouldn’t have suggested to go back if it wasn’t safe for both of you.”

Behind him, Wooyoung made a sound similar to a scoff. “Yeah, you’ve always liked him better.”

“And you always say this whenever I don’t side with you. Even though I’m not taking sides this time, I’m just trying to understand why you’re sulking.”

“Don’t act like you don’t know.”

“I do know, but I want to know which part of it made you leave like that. I thought you were feeling better.” Scrunching his nose, Wooyoung started browsing through his phone again. Sighing, Yeosang grabbed him by the ankle with both hands and dragged him across the bed. “Get over here and talk to me.”

“I don’t wanna talk.” And Wooyoung allowed himself to be dragged. “I want to be sad in peace.”

“But why spend this time being sad when you could come to the kitchen and make lunch with us, and then we can read, and then we’ll take Peony for a walk, and then we’ll do whatever you want.”

With a delayed sigh, Wooyoung tossed his phone away and pulled himself into a sitting position, but farther from Yeosang than he usually did. His heart responded joyfully to Yeosang’s request. In fact, while he sat alone, he’s imagined doing all the things that Yeosang’s ever wanted to do. Boating and fishing and making wine. He’s imagined they’ve done it all. “Are you always this nice to people? Constantly kind even when they’re annoying?”

Yeosang leaned back, supporting himself on the heels of his palms. “Either that, or indifferent. Not a big fan of the second option. Why?”

“I don’t know. Just how eager you are to make things okay. It’s almost as if you’re scared to see someone feeling down. I wouldn’t want to meet the indifferent you.”

“Well I know what you’re going through. I just came here to tell you that I have a strong feeling things are gonna be okay when you go back. I’m not scared of seeing people sad, I just think we’re much more predisposed to feel down when we’re alone. It takes a second— a single intrusive thought to spoil our mood for months. But it takes double those months to feel okay again.”

“So what about you, then? Why are you acting like such a ray of sunshine when you’ve been alone this whole time?”

“Because I’ve never felt lonely. I’ve never given into this state of being alone. I’m almost never home when I’m alone. I wasn’t lying to you when I said I’m always doing things. I come back to feed the animals, and then I’m gone again. I won’t spoil this place with negative stuff, even if this emotional baggage isn’t mine. I know what I’m saying when I tell you that it’s gonna be fine. Don’t seclude yourself. You have San. And. I guess. You have me too?”

“…You guess?”

“Well, you know, I can’t come with you, but I’ll be with you in spirit. And hopefully through the phone too…if I find it by then.”

“Promise?”

Yeosang stretched his legs, gently swinging his feet left and right. He studied Wooyoung’s eyes for a brief moment before replying “Is that what you’re worried about?”

It was an experience to watch the little wounds on Yeosang’s feet heal, only to be replaced by new ones. Wooyoung lived through the horror of witnessing Yeosang step into a glass shard, but apparently not big enough to make him yelp in pain. It might have been a few days after he and San came down with heat exhaustion. As soon as they arrived home, he pulled it out like it was nothing, washed it with saline, wrapped it up, then went about his day. His feet were pretty, like they were the product of an artist who still struggled with colour theory. When Yeosang saw him looking, he tucked his feet in. “I guess. Never been good at falling apart with people. I’d be happy if you stuck around for a while. A long while.”

Yeosang nudged him out of his sulkiness, then gave him his hand to hold. “I promise.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Nothing’s gonna fall apart. Pour your worries somewhere else.” Not yet letting go of Wooyoung’s hand, he stood up, about to drag him up the second time that day, but when he opened his arms, the other did little to protest.

☼

Yeosang sat on the windowsill of their bedroom, smiling nostalgically yet entertained by the way the two bickered over which shirt should go in whose bag. One would think that the last week they spent there was the most uneventful, if not _boring_. There was no pressure to entertain anymore, and no form of urgency to solve the riddle of the year to come. They woke up, went for walks, in the evening they went boating or fishing, and at nights they stargazed. San and Wooyoung talked about more people from their past as well as their journey into sexual discovery, as explicitly as one could possibly retell a story. Yeosang was yet to utter a word about his life from more than three years back. However he began dropping hint after hint that their stories were uncannily similar. ‘Sorry, you’re not getting another me’ he said to them as he smiled nostalgically.

In his lap he held a paper bag filled with apricots, which San was trying to make room in his bag for. He offered to leave clothes behind, then Wooyoung took everything he dropped and somehow stuffed it in his own bag.

When Yeosang left to check the bus timetable again, San took the book out from his bag, opening it at a random page. A blue flower fell into the gutter of the book, and more as he flipped through the pages. Mountain flowers which were once in Yeosang’s hair, scentless and named after paragraphs. “Let’s leave it here.” Wooyoung suggested.

When San bought the book, he did not expect Wooyoung to read it, but he thought it would be the type of thing he would always go back to when he felt down. What he did not expect was for Wooyoung to read his mind. “Okay.” And went to hide the book underneath Yeosang’s pillow.

It was during the sunset hour when they decided to leave. They were alone at the station and neither said a word. Wooyoung pulled Yeosang towards them by the strings of his sweatpants, propping his forehead against his abdomen. Although he worked his body everyday, his tummy was still soft.

There were less than ten minutes left until the bus would arrive. Yeosang searched the area for people, then counted the seconds until he gathered his courage to kiss them. But these seconds gathered into little over a minute, when he felt his racing heart sending tremors to his knees. He sat down and held their hands instead. Around that time of day they would lie in a warm and soft place, like a bed or a blanket on a field, and Yeosang would lean his head on Wooyoung’s lap— because apparently they took turns on who was the pillow. It became something of a ritual after a full day.

“You said you wanted to take a picture?” San recalled as he checked the time on his phone, but Wooyoung seemed to know where he was going with it halfway through his question, and took his phone out in a desperate attempt to challenge the passage of time. He gathered them all together to fit in the frame, switching the sides and the angles an unnerving amount of times, until the murmur of a vehicle closed in, and in his panic, he snapped a series of underwhelming photos that were very likely never going to see the light of day.

They jumped into each other’s arms as if during a reunion, their cheeks pressed into Yeosang’s shoulders, squeezing the life out of him. Before the bus was yet to slow down, Yeosang hugged them both once again, and placed patient kisses on their foreheads. “Let me know when you get there. Everything. Let me know about everything.” He said, seconds before the bus came to a stop.

There were dashed hopes and lines of prayers lost in the attempt to preserve love, like running with an open bag and open pockets and open arms, and hoping you’d stolen it all. And as they held Yeosang’s hands before letting go for good, they’d forgotten places and the order of seasons. Their minds strained to preserve the seconds of present they had, and all the love and care and yearning that came with it. They have all failed to speak. They hugged and waved their hands good bye, and they all smiled when they noticed how close their eyes were to spilling tears.

“You know we haven’t asked for his number, right?” San asked with a hint of fear, too lost to predict what Wooyoung was about to do next.

Wooyoung hissed out a string of curse words, holding his phone tightly in his hand to the brink of cracking, and in those two seconds while the doors closed, he shouted Yeosang’s name and tossed him his phone. Yeosang gawked at them with the widest eyes, holding the phone hopelessly, and his hand stranded in the air in mid-wave.

“You gave him your phone?!” San shifted his eyes from the window to Wooyoung, then back to the window, taking his bag off and setting it down in the space between the front seat and his legs.

“I don’t have the time to wait for him to search for his phone.”

“But what if your mom calls?”

“I told her that I accidentally dropped it water and that it might be broken. She knows I’m with you anyway.”

“…You knew this was gonna happen?”

“I knew he was gonna forget about his phone again. So I had to think of something. I knew he was not gonna accept it if I gave it to him.”

San blinked repeatedly as if to adjust his eyes to a bright light. “You planned it.”

“…I guess,” he looked out the window, holding the backpack tightly to his chest. He smiled widely when San leaned his head on his shoulder.

“I’m proud of you.”

“Shut up,” he was quick to reject him, and yet he kissed the top of his head before resting his cheek against it.

They shared a pair of earphones and listened to slow songs, staring out the window and pointing to all the places they recognised, in denial that they’ve ever travelled so far. They daydreamed of a moment where their hearts would work as minds and they’d jump out of the bus and run all the way back towards the sun descending behind a mountain. If only they did not live in a world with a power to dictate them what was real and what not.

San took his earphone out and opened his his bag in search for his apricots to drown his sorrow in. But at the top of the paper bag was a folded piece of paper. He took Wooyoung’s earphone off and gently nudged him, unfolding the paper.

_I’m sorry for not being able to say more this last week. I wish I could express things better. Maybe I could have made it more meaningful if I worked harder on cheering you up._

_I still don’t know what I’m about to say, because there’s too much._

_It’s past midnight when I’m writing this, and you guys are probably asleep already. I guess this is how the house is gonna be when you guys are not gonna be here._

_I’ll be honest, I was scared of this day. And I was scared of writing this too, because I felt the need to cry. Even now, I’m trying not to._

_But it’s strange because I don’t feel sad. I mean I do, because I know tomorrow I’ll wake up and you guys won’t be here. But I don’t feel sad about anything else._

_I’m glad you decided to get off the bus here. I’m glad I gave you a place to stay. I’m glad I took you to all those places, and I’m glad for the tens of hours I spent talking to you. Ifeel nothing, but grateful. It’s weird._

_I don’t know how relationships like these work, but I’ll try hard. I’ll find a way to keep in touch. I’m scared of you guys being just a memory. I want it to be more than that. And even if one day we won’t talk anymore, I still won’t regret anything._

_It took me a whole summer to realise that I found you guys at a time when I needed someone. I don’t know what you guys think of me as, but whatever it is, I’ll take it. Whatever it is, it’s good for me._

_I don’t know how to describe this thing I feel for you guys, but I know it’s a good feeling. There might be more, actually. There’s a lot of feelings I can’t name yet, but I’ll try explaining them:_

_It hurts me to know that there’s people who don’t accept you for who you are, when you are the smartest and strongest and kindest people I’ve ever met. So filled with essence and bursting with personality as you are. It also hurts to know that you might not have a place to go back to._

_I don’t want anything bad happening to either of you._

_I don’t know how else to protect you other than to tell you that you have a place to stay here. If things get bad there, you’re always welcome to sleep in the same bed you’ve been sleeping in this summer._

_I’d be sad if we never talked again. I don’t feel lonely now that I know you’re leaving, but I would if I knewyou were gone. Does that make sense?_

_Also, I know you love that book you’re reading, but would it be too much if I asked you not to finish it? Leave at least ten pages. I’ll read them to you._

Minutes after they read the letter the first time, it was still there, unfolded, warm with the smell of apricots. The piece of paper was ripped from an old sketch pad, and from the yellowish beads of colour in the centre of page they assumed that it was once used for pressing flowers. The handwriting changed as the letter progressed. In the first lines they were smaller and orderly and in a nearly perfect line, then one could easily pinpoint the exact word where Yeosang’s hand started shaking. When they flipped the page, the first stroke of a character was crossed through, leaving them to wonder what else he wanted to add.

San folded the letter and placed it back in the apricot bag. He then put his and Wooyoung’s earphones in, and took his phone. Unsure what he wanted to do, Wooyoung looked at his phone as he searched for his number, then he nodded in agreement and smiled.

“ _Hey_ ,” Yeosang said, so evidently smiling.

“…Can we stay on the phone until we get home?”

☼

[8:27] Wooyoung: I DON’T WANNA GO I’M TIRED

San: me neither but please. your coffee’s getting cold

Wooyoung: but do we have to they said it’s optional :)

San: I’ll wait for u in the kitchen

Wooyoung: ;(

[8:35] Yeosang: good morning I just torched a wasp nest

San: U WHAT

Wooyoung: HOW

[8:47] Yeosang: with a can of hairspray and a lighter, it was fun

☼

[19:40] Wooyoung: @Yeosang can we FaceTime ;( we miss u

[21:42] Yeosang: one second I’m about to go snake hunting

San: ……these days I’m so scared to text him coz I never know what to expect

Wooyoung. Yes. Same.

[01:17] Yeosang: ok done

Yeosang: damn when did it get so late

☼

[23:10] Wooyoung: so…i showed my mom some pictures…

Wooyoung: and then I made a joke (but not really) about how I have a crush on you both

Wooyoung: and then she asked for a picture…….so I showed her a picture

Wooyoung: and then she goes ‘oh if I were you I wouldn’t know which one to choose either’

Wooyoung: AND THEN I SAID ‘what if I don’t choose’

Wooyoung: AND SHE SAYS ‘do whatever you want just graduate and don’t leave like that again’

[23:12] San: wait really

[23:12] Wooyoung: who is she and what did she do with my mother I’m so confused

[23:13] San: lmao my mom’s just glad I went outside

[23:15] Yeosang: did I not tell you that it was gonna be okay

☼

Wooyoung tapped the end of his pen against the blank page of his notebook, an earworm circling his mind like as joyfully as a ferris wheel. It was a tune that played in the background of a video the lecturer just showed them, and since then he was unable to recall which song it reminded him of. In the seat next to him, San was trying to balance his pen in between his nose and his top lip while leaning back in his chair. He took more notes than Wooyoung did, but his eyes were no doubt clueless of what class that was. Minutes before, Wooyoung wrote ‘you’re handsome :)’ on the corner of his notebook, but San hadn’t noticed it yet. He was more determined to finish this year with flying colours than Wooyoung anticipated.

Bored beyond repair, Wooyoung piled up all their books on his side of the desk to prevent the lecturer from noticing that he had snuck his phone out. There were lots of things happening on his notification centre, but the only one he cared for in that moment was the message he received from Yeosang.

[10:33] Yeosang: Happy Birthday, you ♡

[10:42] Wooyoung: You remembered ;( thank u ♡

Yeosang: yeah u wrote the date on my fridge remember

Wooyoung: okay damn

Yeosang: aren’t you during class btw

Wooyoung: I am and San is ignoring me

Yeosang: can you send me a picture with the view? I wanna see

Wooyoung put his phone screen-down and waited an extra minute until the lecturer turned around. In the meantime San had already filled another page. Wooyoung started having a vague idea about what being discussed in class, but he doubted that it was worth two pages. While San was staring at the whiteboard while contemplating his career choices, Wooyoung peeked at is notes. He had circled an incomplete sentence, then drew an arrow to the bottom of the page where he wrote ‘idk I fell asleep’ and ‘i wrote this unconsciously’. The first time he looked over at Wooyoung was when he was definitely not suspiciously contorting himself to take the picture. There was nothing that would surprise him these days. Then he saw him sending the picture with the view outside to their group chat. The view was that of a forked path which led to the science building and the park, trees shedding auburn leaves and the wind swirling them off the paved path. The sun shone like he was paid minimum wage, and it was still cold. He scrolled through their previous messages while waiting for Yeosang to reply. He remembered where they were and what they were doing every time they called Yeosang out for replying hours, sometimes days late, and his excuse was always that he forgot he even had a phone.

During these months when they were separated, they sent each other packages regularly. Yeosang would save a smaller batch of whatever he made, preferably if it was made out of apricots, and in exchange they would send him things they found in shops, and if there was space left in the package, they would spray their cologne onto an item of clothing they owned and send it over. The most recent thing they sent him was matching bracelets.

[10:55] Yeosang: you mind looking out the window again?

Wooyoung diverted his eyes from the message even before he read it properly, holding his breath as he searched the ground. “Sani,” he called in a near whisper while the rest of the class was engaged in a casual discussion, looking at the familiar figure in a black duffle jacket and a beanie showing him a peace sign. He tapped his thigh erratically, pointing towards the window. By the series of gestures, San was afraid he’s had another epiphany, and before he looked where Wooyoung was pointing, he stealthily checked his phone, and with that, he read Yeosang’s message.

Those last five minutes of class were the longest they’ve ever had to endure. With their hearts hammering in their throats, they held hands tightly underneath the table, and when the lecturer finally dismissed the class, they picked up their books in their arms and dashed out the room. With their bags and pockets wide open, they raced each other down the stairs, their feet seemingly lifting off the ground as they stepped into the outside.

They held the books tightly in their arms as proof they were still in touch with reality, their eyes scouring the area with a euphoric kind of yearning. They’ve had that dream many times.

Yeosang’s eyes were down at hie phone when the sound of two voices shouting his name travelled through the air faster than the sound of winds. They dropped their textbooks and bags, shouting their longing out as Yeosang dove into their arms and plunged into the foliage. They’ve never asked for another him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaand it's done ♥  
> Thank you so much for reading and for being patient with me these days. I know it took a while to post it all, and although I'll miss it, I'm glad it's out here.
> 
> I'll go...Plan the next fic now because this mind doesn't seem to want rest although it's almost midnight now.
> 
> Be kind ♥

**Author's Note:**

> The challenge with this fic was to make it less than 20k words long. Something happened along the way and I failed, but it turned out in a way that I'm slightly happier with.  
> This time I'm a little bit behind with the proofreading and editing, so I won't be able to post the entire fic like I did before. I have written the whole thing, but it's not in it's best form at the moment ;( I hope you understand.  
> I will post the other 2 as soon as I can ♥
> 
> You may or may not find me [here](https://twitter.com/cassyeopeia)


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